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THE DOMINION OF THE AIR 




THE AUTHOR PREPARING 
FOR AN ASCENT. 



THE DOMINION 



OF 



THE AIR 



THE STORY OF AERIAL NAVIGATION 



BY THE 

REV. L M. BACON 

Author of " By Land and Sky," etc. 



WITH TWENTY-FOUR PLATES OF ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 
PHOTOGRAPHS 



PHILADELPHIA : 

DAVID McKAY, Publisher 
io22, Market Street 
1903 



TjUic 

\30 3 



Mil 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Dawn of Aeronautics 



CHAPTER II. 

The Invention of the Balloon ; s ; . 15 

CHAPTER III. . 
The First Balloon Ascent in England. ... 30 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Development of Balloon Philosophy . . 42 

CHAPTER V. 
Some Famous Early Voyagers .... 54 

CHAPTER VI. 
Charles Green and the Nassau Balloon . . 66 

CHAPTER VII. 

Charles Green- — Further Adventures ; . . 79 

CHAPTER VIII. 
John Wise, the American Aeronaut . . -91 

CHAPTER IX; 

Early Methods and Ideas : s . . . 104 

CHAPTER X, 
The Commencement of a New Era s . . .115 

CHAPTER XL 
The Balloon in the Service of Science . , 127 

CHAPTER XII. 
Henry Coxwell and his Contemporaries . ; 139 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Some Noteworthy Ascents ; 5 ; . ,151 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Highest Ascent on Record , . s £ 163 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XV. 
Further Scientific Voyages of Glaisher and 

COXWELL g 8 fi t s 8 : =175 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Some Famous French Aeronauts : s : .-187 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Adventure and Enterprise s s : : : 198 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Balloon in the Siege of Paris : : ; 210 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Tragedy of the " Zenith " — The Navigable 

Balloon s . g a s . . -. 3 s ; 222 

CHAPTER XX. 
A Chapter of Accidents : 2 j : : s 233 

CHAPTER XXI. 
The Coming of the Flying Machine s : : 246 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Story of the Spencers s .- s : '257 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
New Departures in Aerostation s s ; 3 268 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Andree and his Voyages s . : ; : 280 

CHAPTER XXV. 
The Modern Airship — In Search of the Leonids a 291 

CHAPTER XXVI: 
Recent Aeronautical Events 3 ; ; s 304 

CHAPTER XXVIT 
The Possibilities of Balloons in Warfare s i 316 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
The Constitution of the Air ; : : 328 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
Conclusion j 1 *..••• 340 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



THE AUTHOR PREPARING FOR AN ASCENT . Frontispiece 

lana's airship . . . s .' .To face p. 8 

ADVERTISEMENT OF THE EXHIBITION OF MONT- 

GOLFIER'S BALLOON IN LONDON . : „ 20 

BLANCHARD AND JEFFERIES IN THEIR BALLOON ,, 24 

I: VINCENT LUNARDI. 2. LUNARDl's BALLOON. 



58 

70 

80 

104 

124 



3. THE LUNARDI STONE NEAR WARE 

COUNT ZAMBECCARl'S BALLOON 

ABOVE THE SUMMER CLOUDS 

COCKING'S PARACHUTE ASCENT 

INFLATING A BALLOON TWO STAGES 

HAZE LYING OVER THE CITY (Taken from a heig 
3,000/eet) . 

POSTER ANNOUNCING HORSEBACK ASCENT OF 

GREEN AT VAUXHALL .... „ 1 30 

THE NASSAU BALLOON, WITH GREEN AND RUSH 

DESCENDING INTO THE WATER '. . . }i 1 34 

I. AN EASY LANDING. 2. AN AWKWARD LAND- 
ING . . „ I44 

I. A THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SUBURBS. 

2. CHELSEA HOSPITAL FROM ABOVE . _,, 1 52 

IN A BALLOON FACTORY . . . s . „ 1 74 

A MILITARY CAPTIVE BALLOON . . . . ,, 208 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS* 

SIR HIRAM MAXIM'S AIRSHIP . ; 

A PARACHUTE DESCENT 

PERCIVAL SPENCER'S ASCENT AT CALCUTTA 
FILLING A MILITARY BALLOON . % 2 

MESSRS. BESANCON AND FARMAN ABOUT TO 
ASCEND {Showing scientific instruments attached to the car) 

count von zeppelin's airship s ? 

santos-dumont's airship : : 9 

completing an airship in messrs. spencers 1 

FACTORY s 3 5 g 3 ? 5 „ 338 



Vo face 


P. 


230 


yy 




254 


3> 




258 


3i 




268 






276 


y> 




292 


• J3 




306 



THE 

DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

BEING 

THE STORY OF AERIAL NAVIGATIONS 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. 

HE that would learn to fly must be brought up 
to the constant practice of it from his youth, 
trying first only to use his wings as a tame goose 
will do, so by degrees learning to rise higher till he 
attain unto skill and confidence." 

So wrote Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who was 
reckoned a man of genius and learning in the days 
of the Commonwealth. But so soon as we come to 
inquire into the matter we find that this good Bishop 
was borrowing from the ideas of others who had gone 
before him ; and, look back as far as we will, man- 
kind is discovered to have entertained persistent and 
often plausible ideas of human flight. And those 
ideas had in some sort of way, for good or ill, taken 
practical shape. Thus, as long ago as the days when 
Xenophon was leading back his warriors to the shores 
of the Black Sea, and ere the Gauls had first burned 
Rome, there was a philosopher, Archytas, who in- 
B 



2 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

vented a pigeon which could fly, partly by means of 
mechanism, and partly also, it is said, by aid of an 
aura or spirit. And here arises a question. Was this 
aura a gas, or did men use it as spiritualists do to- 
day, as merely a word to conjure with ? 

Four centuries later, in the days of Nero, there was 
a man in Rome who flew so well and high as to lose 
his life thereby. Here, at any rate, was an honest 
man, or the story would not have ended thus ; but 
of the rest — and there are many who in early ages 
aspired to the attainment of flight — we have no more 
reason to credit their claims than those of charlatans 
who flourish in every age. 

In mediaeval times we are seriously told by a 
saintly writer (St. Remigius) of folks who created 
clouds which rose to heaven by means of " an earthen 
pot in which a little imp had been enclosed." We 
need no more. That was an age of flying saints, as 
also of flying dragons. Flying in those days of yore 
may have been real enough to the multitude, but it 
was at best delusion. In the good old times it did 
not need the genius of a Maskelyne to do a " levita- 
tion " trick. We can picture the scene at a " flying 
seance'' On the one side the decidedly professional 
showman possessed of sufficient low cunning ; on the 
other the ignorant and highly superstitious audience 
eager to hear or see some new thing — the same audi- 
ence that, deceived by a simple trick of schoolboy 
science, would listen to supernatural voices in their 
groves, or oracular utterances in their temples, or 
watch the urns of Bacchus fill themselves with wine. 
Surely for their eyes it would need no more than the 



THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. 3 

simplest phantasmagoria, or maybe only a little black 
thread, to make a pigeon rise and fly. 

It is interesting to note, however, that in the case 
last cited there is unquestionably an allusion to some 
crude form of firework, and what more likely or better 
calculated to impress the ignorant! Our firework 
makers still manufacture a " little Devil.' 5 Pyrotechny 
is as old as history itself ; we have an excellent descrip- 
tion of a rocket in a document at least as ancient as 
the ninth century. And that a species of pyrotechny 
was resorted to by those who sought to imitate flight 
we have proof in the following recipe for a flying body 
given by a Doctor, eke a Friar, in Paris in the days of 
our King John : — 

" Take one pound of sulphur, two pounds of willow- 
carbon, six pounds of rock salt ground very fine in a 
marble mortar. Place, when you please, in a cover- 
ing made of flying papyrus to produce thunder. The 
covering in order to ascend and float away should be 
long, graceful, well filled with this fine powder ; but 
to produce thunder the covering should be short, thick, 
and half full." 

Nor does this recipe stand alone. Take another 
sample, of which chapter and verse are to be found 
in the MSS. of a Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, of Palermo 
and Rome, born three hundred years ago : — 

' The shells of hen-eggs, if properly filled and well 
secured against the penetration of the air, and ex- 
posed to solar rays, will ascend to the skies and some- 
times suffer a natural change. And if the eggs of the 
arger description of swans, or leather balls stitched 
with fine thongs, be filled with nitre, the purest sulphur 



4 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

quicksilver, or kindred materials which rarify by 
their caloric energy, and if they externally resemble 
pigeons, they will easily be mistaken for flying 
animals." 

Thus it would seem that, hunting back in history, 
there were three main ideas on which would-be aero- 
nauts of old exercised their ingenuity. There was the 
last-mentioned method, which, by the way, Jules 
Verne partly relies on when he takes his heroes to the 
moon, and which in its highest practical development 
may be seen annually on the night of " Brock's Bene- 
fit " at the Crystal Palace. There is, again, the 
" tame goose " method, to which we must return pre- 
sently ; and, lastly, there is a third method, to which, 
as also to the brilliant genius who conceived it, we 
must without further delay be introduced. This may 
be called the method of "a hollow globe." 

Roger Bacon, Melchisedeck-fashion, came into 
existence at Ilchester in 1214 of parentage that is hard 
to trace. He was, however, a born philosopher, and 
possessed of intellect and penetration that placed him 
incalculably ahead of his generation. A man of mar- 
vellous insight and research, he grasped, and as far as 
possible carried out, ideas which dawned on other men 
only after centuries. Thus, many of his utterances 
have been prophetic. It is probable that among his 
chemical discoveries he re-invented gunpowder. It is 
certain that he divined the properties of a lens, and 
diving deep into experimental and mechanical sciences? 
actually foresaw the time when, in his own words, 
" men would construct engines to traverse land and 
water with great speed and carry with them persons 



THE DAWN OF;,; AERONAUTICS. 5 

and merchandise." Clearly in his dreams Bacon saw 
the Atlantic not merely explored, but on its bosom 
the White Star liners breaking records, contemptuous 
of its angriest seas. He saw, too, a future Dumont 
circling in the air, and not only in a dead calm, but 
holding his own with the feathered race. He tells his 
dream thus : " There may be made some flying in- 
strument so that a man sitting in the middle of the 
instrument and turning some mechanism may put in 
motion some artificial wings which may beat the air 
like a bird flying." 

But he lived too long before his time. His ruin 
lay not only in his superior genius, but also in his 
fearless outspokenness. He presently fell under the 
ban of the Church, through which he lost alike his 
liberty and the means of pursuing investigation. Had 
it been otherwise we may fairly believe that the " ad- 
mirable Doctor," as he was called, would have been 
the first to show mankind how to navigate the air. 
His ideas are perfectly easy to grasp. He conceived 
that the air was a true fluid, and as such must 
have an upper limit, and it would be on this 
upper surface, he supposed, as on the bosom 
of the ocean, that man would sail his air-ship. 
A fine, bold guess truly. He would watch the 
cirrus clouds sailing grandly ten miles above him on 
some stream that never approached nearer. Up 
there, in his imagination, would be tossing the waves 
of our ocean of air. Wait for some little better cy- 
linders of oxygen and an improved foot-warmer, and 
a future Coxwell will go aloft and see ; but as to an 
upper sea, it is truly there, and we may visit and view 



6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

its sun-lit tossing billows stretching out to a limitless 
horizon at such times as the nether world is shrouded 
in densest gloom. Bacon's method of reaching such 
an upper sea as he postulated was, as we have said, 
by a hollow globe. 

" The machine must be a large hollow globe, of 
( opper or other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin 
so as to have it as light as possible," and " it must be 
filled with ethereal air or liquid fire." This was written 
in the thirteenth century, and it is scarcely edifying 
to find four hundred years after this the Jesuit Father 
Lana, who contrived to make his name live in history 
as a theoriser in aeronautics, arrogating to himself the 
bold conception of the English Friar, with certain un- 
fortunate differences, however, which in fairness we 
must here clearly point out. Lana proclaimed his 
speculations standing on a giant's shoulders. Torri- 
celli, with his closed bent tube, had just shown the 
world how heavily the air lies above us. It then re- 
quired little mathematical skill to calculate what would 
be the lifting power of any vessel void of air on the 
earth's surface. Thus Lana proposed the construction 
of an air ship which possibly because of its pictures- 
queness has won him notoriety. But it was a fraud. 
We have but to conceive a dainty boat in which the 
aeronaut would sit at ease handling a little rudder 
and a simple sail. These, though a schoolboy would 
have known better, he thought would guide his vessel 
when in the air. 

So much has been claimed for Father Lana and 
his mathematical and other attainments that it seems 
only right to insist on the weakness of his reasoning. 
An air ship simply drifting with the wind is incapable 



THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. 7 

of altering its course in the slightest degree by either 
sail or rudder. It is simply like a log borne along in a 
torrent ; but to compare such a log properly with the 
air ship we must conceive it wholly submerged in the 
water and having no sail or other appendage projecting 
into the air, which would, of course, introduce other 
conditions. If, however, a man were to sit astride of 
the log and begin to propel it so that it travels either 
faster or slower than the stream, then in that case ? 
either by paddle or rudder, the log could be guided, 
and the same might be said of Lana's air boat if only 
he had thought of some adequate paddle, fan, or other 
propeller. But he did not. One further explanatory 
sentence may here be needed : for we hear of balloons 
which are capable of being guided to a small extent by 
sail and rudder. In these cases, however, the rudder 
is a guide rope trailing on earth or sea, so introducing 
a fresh element and fresh conditions which are easy to 
explain. 

Suppose a free balloon drifting down the wind 
to have a sail suddenly hoisted on one side, what 
happens ? The balloon will simply swing till this sail 
is in front, and thus continue its straightforward course. 
Suppose, however, that as soon as the side sail is 
hoisted a trail rope is also dropped aft from a spar in 
the rigging. The tendency of the sail to fly round in 
front is now checked by the dragging rope, and it is 
constrained to remain slanting at em angle on one side ; 
at the same time the rate of the balloon is reduced 
by the dragging rope, so that it travels slower than 
the wind, which, now acting on its slant sail, imparts 
a certain sidelong motion much as it does in the case 
of a sailing boat. 



8 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Lana having in imagination built his ship, proceeds 
to make it float up into space, for which purpose he 
proposes four thin copper globes exhausted of air. 
Had this last been his own idea we might have par- 
doned him. We have, however, pointed out that it 
was not, and we must further point out that in copy- 
ing his great predecessor he fails to see that he would 
lose enormous advantage by using four globes instead 
of one. But, beyond all, he failed to see what the 
master genius of Bacon saw clearly — that his thin 
globes when exhausted must infallibly collapse by 
virtue of that very pressure of the air which he sought 
to make use of. 

It cannot be too strongly insisted on that if the 
too much belauded speculations of Lana have any 
value at all it is that they throw into stronger contrast 
the wonderful insight of the philosopher who so long 
preceded him. By sheer genius Bacon had foreseen 
that the emptied globe must be filled with something, 
and for this something he suggests "ethereal air" or 
" liquid fire," neither of which, we contend, were empty 
terms. With Bacon's knowledge of experimental 
chemistry it is a question, and a most interesting one, 
whether he had not in his mind those two actual prin- 
ciples respectively of gas and air rarefied by heat on 
which we launch our balloons into space to-day. 

Early progress in any art or science is commonly 
intermittent. It was so in the story of aeronautics. 
Advance was like that of the incoming tide, throwing 
an occasional wave far in front of its rising flood. It 
was a phenomenal wave that bore Roger Bacon and 
left his mark on the sand where none other approached 




LANAS AIRSHIP 



From an Engraving in the "European Magazine," 1798. 



THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. 9 

for centuries. In those centuries men were either too 
priest-ridden to lend an ear to Science, or, like children, 
followed only the Will-o'-the-Wisp floating above the 
quagmire which held them fast. They ran after the 
stone that was to turn all to gold, or the elixir that 
should conquer death, or the signs in the heavens that 
should foretell their destinies ; and the taint of this 
may be traced even when the dark period that followed 
was clearing away. Four hundred years after Roger's 
death, his illustrious namesake, Francis Bacon, was 
formulating his Inductive Philosophy, and with com- 
plete cock-sureness was teaching mankind all about 
everything. Let us look at some of his utterances 
which may help to throw light on the way he regarded 
the problem we are dealing with. 

" It is reported," Francis Bacon writes, " that the 
Leucacians in ancient time did use to precipitate a man 
from a high cliff e into the sea ; tying about him, with 
strings, at some distance, many great fowles ; and 
fixing unto his body divers feathers, spread, to breake 
the fall. Certainly many birds of good wing (as Kites 
and the like) would beare up a good weight as they 
flie. And spreading of feathers, thin and close, and 
in great breadth, will likewise beare up a great weight, 
being even laid without tilting upon the sides. The 
further extension of this experiment of flying may be 
thought upon." 

To say the least, this is hardly mechanical. But 
let us next follow the philosopher into the domain of 
Physics. Referring to a strange assertion, that 
" salt water will dissolve salt put into it in less 
time than fresh water will dissolve it," he is at once 



io THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

ready with an explanation to fit the case. " The salt," 
he says, " in the precedent water doth by similitude 
of substance draw the salt new put in unto it." Again, 
in his finding, well water is warmer in winter than 
summer, and " the cause is the subterranean heat 
which shut clcse in (as in winter) is the more, but if 
it perspire (as it doth in summer) it is the less." This 
was Bacon the Lord. What a falling off — from the 
experimentalist's point of view — from Bacon the Friar ! 
We can fancy him watching a falcon poised motionless 
in the sky, and reflecting on that problem which to this 
day fairly puzzles our ablest scientists, settling the 
matter in a sentence : "The cause is that feathers doe 
possess upward attractions." During four hundred 
years preceding Lord Verulam philosophers would have 
flown by aid of a broomstick. Bacon himself would 
have merely parried the problem with a platitude ! 

At any rate, physicists, even in the brilliant seven- 
teenth century, made no material progress towards the 
navigation of the air, and thus presently let the simple 
mechanic step in before them. Ere that century had 
closed something in the nature of flight had been accom- 
plished. It is exceedingly hard to arrive at actual 
fact, but it seems pretty clear that more than one indi- 
vidual, by starting from some eminence, could let him- 
self fall into space and waft himself away for some 
distance with fair success and safety, It is stated that 
an English Monk, Elmerus, flew the space of a furlong 
from a tower in Spain, a feat of the same kind having 
been accomplished by another adventurer from the 
top of St. Mark's at Venice. 

In these attempts it would seem that the principle 



THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. n 

of the parachute was to some extent at least brought 
into play. If also circumstantial accounts can be 
credited, it would appear that a working model of a 
flying machine was publicly exhibited by one John 
Muller before the Emperor Charles V. at Nuremberg. 
Whatever exaggeration or embellishment history may 
be guilty of it is pretty clear that some genuine attempts 
of a practical and not unsuccessful nature had been 
made here and there, and these prompted the flowery 
and visionary Bishop Wilkins already quoted to pre- 
dict confidently that the day was approaching when 
it " would be as common for a man to call for his wings 
as for boots and spurs. 55 

We have now to return to the " tame goose 55 
method, which found its best and boldest exponent in 
a humble craftsman, by name Besnier, living at Sable, 
about the year 1678. This mechanical genius was by 
trade a locksmith, and must have been possessed of 
sufficient skill to construct an efficient apparatus out 
of such materials as came to his hand, of the simplest 
possible design. It may be compared to the earliest 
type of bicycle, the ancient " bone shaker, 55 now al- 
most forgotten save by those who, like the writer, had 
experience of it on its first appearance. Besnier 5 s 
wings, as it would appear, were essentially a pair of 
double-bladed paddles and nothing more, roughly re- 
sembling the double-paddle of an old-fashioned canoe, 
only the blades were large, roughly rectangular, and 
curved or hollowed. The operator would commence 
by standing erect and balancing these paddles, one on 
each shoulder, so that the hollows of the blades should 
be towards the ground. The forward part of each 



12 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

paddle was then grasped by the hands, while the hinder 
part of each was connected to the corresponding leg. 
This, presumably, would be effected after the arms 
had been raised vertically, the leg attachment being 
contrived in some way which experience would dictate. 
The flyer was now fully equipped, and nothing re- 
mained for him save to mount some eminence and, 
throwing himself forward into space and assuming the 
position of a flying bird, to commence flapping and 
beating the air with a reciprocal motion. First, he 
would buffet the air downwards with the left arm and 
right leg simultaneously, and while these recovered 
their position would strike with the right hand and left 
leg, and so on alternately. With this crude method 
the enterprising inventor succeeded in raising himself 
by short stages from one height to another, reaching 
thus the top of a house, whence he could pass over 
others, or cross a river or the like. 

The perfecting of his system became then simply 
a question of practice and experience, and had young 
athletes only been trained from early years to the new 
art it seems reasonable to suppose that some crude 
approach to human flight would have been effected. 
Modifications and improvements in construction would 
soon have suggested themselves, as was the case with 
the bicycle, which in its latest developments can 
scarcely be recognised as springing from the primitive 
" bone-shaker " of thirty-three years ago. We would 
suggest the idea to the modern inventor. He will 
in these days, of course, find lighter materials to 
hand. Then he will adopt some link motion for 
the legs in place of leather thongs, and will 



THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. 13 

hinge the paddle blades so that they open out with the 
forward stroke, but collapse with the return. Then 
look on another thirty-three years — a fresh generation 
— and our youth of both sexes may find a popular 
recreation in graceful aerial exercise. The pace is not 
likely to be excessive, and molestations from disguised 
policemen — not physically adapted, by the way, to 
rapid flight — need not be apprehended. 

One of the best tests of Besnier's measure of success 
is supplied by the fact that he had pupils as well as 
imitators. First on this list must be mentioned a 
Mr. Baldwin, a name which, curiously enough, twice 
over in modern times comes into the records of bold 
aerial exploits. This individual, it appears, purchased 
a flying outfit of Besnier himself, and surpassed his 
master in achievement. A little later one Dante con- 
trived some modification of the same apparatus, with 
which he pursued the new mode of progress till he 
met with a fractured thigh. 

But whatever the imitators of Besnier may have 
accomplished, to the honest smith must be accorded 
the full credit of their success, and with his simple, but 
brilliant, record left at flood mark, the tide of progress 
ebbed back again, while mankind ruminated over the 
great problem in apparent inactivity. But not for 
long. The air-pump about this period was given to the 
world, and chemists were already busy investigating 
the nature of gases. Cavallo was experimenting on 
kindred lines, while in our own land the rival geniuses 
of Priestley and Cavendish were clearing the way to 
make with respect to the atmosphere the most im- 
portant discovery yet dreamed of. In recording this 



:4 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

dawn of a new era, however, we should certainly not 
forget how, across the Atlantic, had arisen a Rumford 
and a Franklin, whose labours were destined to throw 7 
an all-important sidelight on the pages of progress 
which we have now to chronicle. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 

IT was a November night of the year 1782, in the little 
town of Annonay, near Lyons. Two young men, 
Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, , the representatives 
of a firm of paper makers, were sitting together over 
their parlour fire. While watching the smoke curling 
up the chimney one propounded an idea by way of a 
sudden inspiration : " Why shouldn't smoke be made 
to raise bodies into the air ? " 

The world w T as waiting for this utterance, which, 
it would seem, was on the tip of the tongue with many 
others. Cavendish had already discovered what he 
designated " inflammable air," though no one had as 
yet given it its later title of hydrogen gas. Moreover, 
in treating of this gas — Dr. Black of Edinburgh, as 
much as fifteen years before the date we have now 
arrived at, had suggested that it should be made cap- 
able of raising a thin bladder in the air. With a shade 
more of good fortune, or maybe with a modicum more 
of leisure, the learned Doctor would have won the 
invention of the balloon for his own country. Cavallo 
came almost nearer, and actually putting the same 
idea into practice, had succeeded in the spring of 1782 
in making soap bubbles blown with hydrogen gas float 
upwards. But he had accomplished no more when, 
as related, in the autumn of the same year the brothers 



16 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Montgolfier conceived the notion of making bodies 
" levitate " by the simpler expedient of filling them 
with smoke. 

This was the crude idea, the application of which 
in their hands was soon marked with notable success. 
Their own trade supplied ready and suitable materials 
for a first experiment, and, making an oblong bag of 
thin paper a few feet in length, they proceeded to in- 
troduce a cloud of smoke into it by holding crumpled 
paper kindled in a chafing dish beneath the open 
mouth. What a subject is there here for an imagina- 
tive painter ! As the smoky cloud formed within, the 
bag distended itself, became buoyant, and presently 
floated to the ceiling. The simple trial proved a 
complete success, due, as it appeared to them, to the 
ascensive power of a cloud of smoke. 

An interesting and more detailed version of the 
story is extant. While the experiment was in progress 
a neighbour, the widow of a tradesman who had been 
connected in business with the firm, seeing smoke 
escaping into the room, entered and stood watching the 
proceedings, which were not unattended with diffi- 
culties. The bag, half inflated, was not easy to hold in 
position over the chafing dish, and rapidly cooled and 
collapsed on being removed from it. The widow noting 
this, as also the perplexity of the young men, sug- 
gested that they should try the result of tying the dish 
on at the bottom of the bag. This was the one thing 
wanted to secure success, and that good lady, whose 
very name is unhappily lost, deserves an honoured 
place in history. It was unquestionably the adoption 
of her idea which launched the first balloon into space. 



THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 17 

The same experiment repeated in the open air 
proving a yet more pronounced success, more elaborate 
trials were quickly developed, and the infant balloon 
grew fast. One worthy of the name, spherical in shape 
and of some 600 cubic feet capacity, was now made 
and treated as before, with the result that ere it was 
fully inflated it broke the strings that held it and 
sailed away hundreds of feet into the air. The 
infant was fast becoming a prodigy. Encouraged by 
their fresh success, the inventors at once set about pre- 
parations for the construction of a much larger balloon 
some thirty-five feet diameter (that is, of about 23,000 
cubic feet capacity), to be made of linen lined with 
paper and this machine, launched on a favourable day 
in the following spring, rose with great swiftness to 
fully a thousand feet, and travelled nearly a mile from 
its starting ground. 

Enough ; the time was already ripe for a public 
demonstration of the new invention, and accordingly 
the 5th of the following June witnessed the ascent of 
the same balloon with due ceremony and advertise- 
ment. Special pains were taken with the inflation, 
which was conducted over a pit above which the 
balloon envelope was slung ; and in accordance with 
the view that smoke was the chief lifting power, the 
fuel was composed of straw largely mixed with wool. 
It is recorded that the management of the furnace 
needed the attention of two men only, while eight men 
could hardly hold the impatient balloon in restraint. 
The inflation, in spite of the fact that the fuel chosen 
was scarcely the best for the purpose, was conducted 
with remarkable expedition, and on being released the 
c 



1 8 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

craft travelled one and a half miles into the air, attain- 
ing a height estimated at over 6,000 feet. 

From this time the tide of events in the aeronautical 
world rolls on in full flood, almost every half-year 
marking a fresh epoch, until a new departure in the 
infant art of ballooning was already on the point of 
being reached. It had been erroneously supposed that 
the ascent of the Montgolfier balloon had been due, 
not to the rarefaction of the air within it — which was 
its true cause — but to the evolution of some light gas 
disengaged by the nature of the fuel used. It followed, 
therefore, almost as a matter of course, that chemists, 
who, as stated in the last chapter, were already ac- 
quainted with so-called " inflammable air," or hydro- 
gen gas, grasped the fact that this gas would serve 
better than any other for the purposes of a balloon. 
And no sooner had the news of the Montgolfiers' 
success reached Paris than a subscription was raised, 
and M. Charles, Professor of Experimental Philosophy, 
was appointed, with the assistance of M. Roberts, to 
superintend the construction of a suitable balloon and 
its inflation by the proposed new method. 

The task was one of considerable difficulty, owing 
partly to the necessity of procuring some material 
which would prevent the escape of the lightest and 
most subtle gas known, and no less by reason of the 
difficulty of preparing under pressure a sufficient quan- 
tity of gas itself. The experiment, sound enough in 
theory, was eventually carried through after several 
instructive failures. A suitable material was found in 
" lustring," a glossy silk cloth varnished with a solution 
of caoutchouc, and this being formed into a balloon 



THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 19 

only thirteen feet in diameter and fitted without 
other aperture than a stopcock, was after several at- 
tempts filled with hydrogen gas prepared in the usual 
way by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on scrap 
iron. 

The preparations completed, one last and all-im- 
portant mistake was made by closing the stop-cock 
before the balloon was dismissed, the disastrous and 
unavoidable result of this being at the time overlooked. 

On August 25, 1783, the balloon was liberated on 
the Champ de Mars before an enormous concourse, and 
in less than two minutes had reached an elevation of 
half a mile, when it was temporarily lost in cloud, 
through which, however, it penetrated, climbing into 
yet higher cloud, when, disappearing from sight, it 
presently burst and descended to earth after remaining 
in the air some three-quarters of an hour. 

The bursting of this little craft taught the future 
balloonist his first great lesson, namely, that on leaving 
earth he must open the neck of his balloon ; and the 
reason of this is obvious. While yet on earth the im- 
prisoned gas of a properly filled balloon distends the 
silk by virtue of its expansive force, and in spite of 
the enormous outside pressure which the weight of 
air exerts upon it. Then, as the balloon rises high in 
the air and the outside pressure grows less, the strug- 
gling gas within, if allowed no vent, stretches the 
balloon more and more until the slender fabric bursts 
under the strain. 

At the risk of being tedious, we have dwelt at some 
length on the initial experiments which in less than 
a single year had led to the discovery and development 



20 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

of two distinct methods — still employed and in com- 
petition with each other — of dismissing balloons into 
the heavens. We are now prepared to enter fully 
into the romantic history of our subject which from 
this point rapidly unfolds itself. 

Some eleven months only after the two Montgol- 
fiers were discovered toying with their inflated paper 
bag, the younger of the two brothers was engaged to 
make an exhibition of his new art before the King at 
Versailles, and this was destined to be the first occasion 
when a balloon was to carry a living freight into the 
sky. The stately structure, which was gorgeously 
decorated, towered some seventy feet into the air, 
and was furnished with a wicker car in which the pas- 
sengers were duly installed. These were three in 
number, a sheep, a cock, and a duck, and amid the 
acclamations of the multitude, rose a few hundred feet 
and descended half a mile away. The cock was found 
to have sustained an unexplained mishap : its leg was 
broken ; but the sheep was feeding complacently, 
and the duck was quacking with much apparent 
satisfaction. 

Now, who among mortals will come forward and 
win the honour of being the first to sail the skies ? 
M. Pilatre de Rozier at once volunteered, and by the 
month of November a new air ship was built, 74 feet 
high, 48 feet in largest diameter, and 15 feet across 
the neck, outside which a wicker gallery was con- 
structed, while an iron brazier was slung below all. 
But to trim the boat properly two passengers were 
needed, and de Rozier found a ready colleague in the 
Marquis d'Arlandes. By way of precaution, de Rozier 



GRAND AIR BALLOON, 
.?rom . * ' ^ PARIS. 



LYCEUM, 




STRAND. 



FORT Y FEET IN CIR CUMFERENCE. 

MONSIEUR CHEVALIER has the Honor of announcing to the Nobfem 
of England! that the Grand Aeroftatic Globe of the immortal Monfiear 
M0NTGOLFIER, is juft arrived in this Capital from Pan's, in its Progrefs to 
the Univerfity of Oxford $ and that in order to gratify their Curiofity, this im- 
mense, fubKme, and moft brilliant Spectacle will be exhibited to them for a few* 
Days, before its Removal to Oxford, m the Grand Apartment called the 
LYCEUM, Three Doors above Exeter-'Change. in the Strand. London. 

As Monfieur Montgolpier ! for the Honor of Science and with all the 
Liberality of a true Philofopher ! has ordained his AIR B \LLOON to be 
ihewn to the Englifh Nation without any Expence, Monfieur CHEVALIER 
permits the Domestic, who has the Honor of fuperintending it, to receive but 
ONE SHILLING from each Perfon, to defray in Part the Expences of this 
Advertl fmg,' and of the noble and moft commodious Apartment In which it is 
exhibited It is hoped therefore, that the Learned and the Curious will inftantly 
profit by this public Notice. 

This brilliant' and moft magnificent Spectacle is doubly overlaid with -Gold! 
upon it beam with effulgent Glory, Conftellatioos of Stars, and all the Planets 
of our Solar Syftem I— - and in fine, the Whole exhibits the Appearance' of & 
Huge World floating in the incomprehenfible Infinity of Eternal SpaeeJ-ji - 

Trie BAM.OOSI being full Forty Feet m C rcurnferenoe^ if it was ia Reality what «t appears, 
tobt\ fohd GolJy it would weigh more tiwo Four 'Wiioos-of Founds. ^ °'~" ; 

N. B, As the i iaic h foik.rt,'€©fnpany will he ad mitt • d from > me m the Morning, 'till Five at Night. 
.. ■ Five k Rot ! ef (a Re me / d * Jingle 'erre ! 



ADVERTISEMENT OF THE EXHIBITION OF 
MONTGOLFIER's BALLOON IN LONDON. 



From the British Museu 



THE INVENTION OF THE^ BALLOON. 21 

made a few preliminary ascents with the balloon held 
captive, and then the two intrepid Frenchmen took 
their stand on opposite sides of the gallery, each fur- 
nished with bundles of fuel to feed the furnace, each 
also carrying a large wet sponge with which to ex- 
tinguish the flames whenever the machine might catch 
fire. On casting off the balloon rose readily, and reach- 
ing 3,000 feet, drifted away on an upper current. 

The rest of the narrative, much condensed from 
a letter of the Marquis, written a week later, runs some- 
what thus : " Our departure was at fifty-four minutes 
past one, and occasioned little stir among the spec- 
tators. Thinking they might be frightened and stand 
in need of encouragement, I waved my arm. M.de 
Rozier cried, ' You are doing nothing, and we are 
not rising ! 5 I stirred the fire, and then began to 
scan the river, but Pilatre cried again, ' See the river ; 
we are dropping into it ! ' We again urged the fire, 
but still clung to the river bed. Presently I heard a 
noise in the upper part of the balloon, which gave a 
shock as though it had burst. I called to my com- 
panion, ' Are you dancing ? ' The balloon by now 
had many holes burned in it, and using my sponge I 
cried that we must descend. My companion, how- 
ever, explained that we were over Paris, and must now 
cross it. Therefore, raising the fire once more, we 
turned south till we passed the Luxemburg, when, 
extinguishing the flame, the balloon came down spent 
and empty." 

Daring as was this ascent, it was in achievement 
eclipsed two months later at Lyons, when a mam- 
moth balloon, 130 feet in height and lifting 18 tons, was 



22 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

inflated in seventeen minutes, and ascended with no 
less than seven passengers. When more than half a 
mile aloft this machine, which was made of too slender 
material for its huge size, suddenly developed a rent of 
half its length, causing it to descend with immense 
velocity ; but without the smallest injury to any of 
the passengers. This was a memorable performance 
and the account, sensational as it may read, is by no 
means unworthy of credit ; for, as will be seen here- 
after, a balloon even when burst or badly torn in mid- 
air may, on the principle of the parachute, effect its 
own salvation. 

In the meanwhile, the rival balloon of hydrogen 
gas — the Charliere, as it has been called — had had 
its first innings. Before the close of the year MM. 
Roberts and Charles constructed and inflated a hydro- 
gen balloon, this time fitted with a practicable valve, 
and in partnership accomplished an ascent beating all 
previous records. The day, December 17, was one 
of winter temperature ; yet the aeronauts quickly 
reached 6 5 ooo feet, and when, after remaining aloft 
for one and a half hours, they descended, Roberts 
got out, leaving Charles in sole possession. Left to 
himself, this young recruit seems to have met with 
experiences which are certainly unusual, and which 
must be attributed largely to the novelty of his situa- 
tion. He declared that at 9,000 feet, or less than 
two miles, all objects on the earth had disappeared 
from view, a statement which can only be taken to 
mean that he had entered cloud. Further, at this 
moderate elevation he not only became benumbed 
with cold, but felt severe pain in his right ear and 



THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 23 

jaw. He held on. however, ascending till 10,500 
feet were reached, when he descended, having made 
a journey of thirty miles from the start. 

Ascents, all on the Continent, now followed one 
another in rapid succession, and shortly the MM. 
Roberts essayed a venture on new lines. They at- 
tempted the guidance of a balloon by means of oars, 
and though they failed in this they were fortunate in 
making a fresh record. They also encountered a 
thunderstorm, and by adopting a perfectly scientific 
method — of which more hereafter — succeeded in 
eluding it. The storm broke around them when 
they were 14,000 feet high, and at this altitude, 
noting that there were diverse currents aloft, they 
managed to manoeuvre their balloon higher or lower 
at will and to suit their purpose, and by this stratagem 
drew away from the storm centre. After six and a 
half hours their voyage ended, but not until 150 miles 
had been covered. 

It must be freely granted that prodigious pro- 
gress had been made in an art that as yet was little 
more than a year old ; but assuredly not enough to 
justify the absurdly inflated ideas that the Continental 
public now began to indulge in. Men lost their mental 
balance, allowing their imagination to run riot, and 
speculation became extravagant in the extreme. There 
was to be no limit henceforward to the attainment 
of fresh knowledge, nor any bounds placed to where 
man might roam. The universe was open to him : 
he might voyage if he willed to the moon or elsewhere : 
Paris was to be the starting point for other worlds : 
Heavan itself had been taken by storm. 



24 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

Moderation had to be learned ere long by the dis- 
cipline of more than one stern lesson. Hitherto a 
marvellous — call it a Providential — good fortune had 
attended the first aerial travellers ; and even when 
mishaps presently came to be reckoned with, it may 
fairly be questioned whether so many lives were sac- 
rificed among those who sought to voyage through the 
sky as were lost among such as first attempted to 
navigate the sea. 

It is in such ventures as we are now regarding 
that fortune seems readiest to favour the daring, and 
if I may digress briefly to adduce experiences coming 
within my own knowledge, I would say that it is to 
his very impulsiveness that the enthusiast often owes 
the safety of his neck. It is the timid, not the bold 
rider, that comes to grief at the fence. It is the man 
who draws back who is knocked over by a tramcar. 
Sheer impetus, moral or physical, often carries you 
through, as in the case of a fall from horse-back. To 
tumble off when your horse is standing still and re- 
ceive a dead blow from the ground might easily break a 
limb. But at full gallop immunity often lies in the fact 
that you strike the earth at an angle, and being carried 
forward, impact is less abrupt. I can only say that 
I have on more than one occasion found the greatest 
safety in a balloon venture involving the element of 
risk to lie in complete abandonment to circumstances, 
and in the increased life and activity which the deli- 
rium of excitement calls forth. In comparing, how- 
ever, man's first ventures by sky with those by sea, 
we must remember what far greater demand the for- 
mer must have made upon the spirit of enterprise 
and daring. 



THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 25 

We can picture the earliest sea voyager taking his 
first lesson astride of a log with one foot on the bottom, 
and thus proceeding by sure stages till he had built 
his coracle and learned to paddle it in shoal water. 
But the case was wholly different when the first frail 
air ship stood at her moorings with straining gear and 
fiercely burning furnace, and when the sky sailor knew 
that no course was left him but to dive boldly up into 
an element whence there was no stepping back, and 
separated from earth by a gulf which man instinctively 
dreads to look down upon. 

Taking events in their due sequence, we have now 
to record a voyage which the terrors of sky and sea 
together combined to make memorable. Winter had 
come — early January of 1785 — when, in spite of short 
dark days and frosty air, M. Blanchard, accompanied 
by an American, Dr. Jeffries, determined on an attempt 
to cross the Channel. They chose the English side, 
and inflating their balloon with hydrogen at Dover, 
boldly cast off, and immediately drifted out to sea. 
Probably they had not paid due thought to the effect 
of low sun and chilly atmosphere, for their balloon 
rose sluggishly and began settling down ere little more 
than a quarter of their course was run. Thereupon 
they parted with a large portion of their ballast, with 
the result that they crept on as far as mid-Channel, 
when they began descending again, and cast out the 
residue of their sand, together with some books, and 
this, too, with the uncomfortable feeling that even 
these measures would not suffice to secure their safety. 
This was in reality the first time that a sea passage 
had been made by sky, and the gravity of their situa- 



26 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

tion must not be under-estimated. We are so accus- 
tomed in a sea passage to the constant passing of 
other vessels that we allow ourselves to imagine 
that a frequented portion of the ocean, such as the 
Channel, is thickly dotted over with shipping of some 
sort. But in entertaining this idea we are forgetful 
of the fact that we are all the while on a steamer track. 
The truth, however, is that anywhere outside such a 
track, even from the commanding point of view of a 
high-flying balloon, the ocean is seen to be more vast 
than we suppose, and bears exceedingly little but the 
restless waves upon its surface. Once fairly in the 
water with a fallen balloon, there is clearly no rising 
again, and the life of the balloon in this its wrong ele- 
ment is not likely to be a long one. The globe of gas 
ma}/ under favourable circumstances continue to float 
for some while, but the open wicker car is the worst 
possible boat for the luckless voyagers, while to leave 
it and cling to the rigging is but a forlorn hope, owing 
to the mass of netting which surrounds the silk, and 
which would prove a death-trap in the water. There 
are many instances of lives having been lost in such 
a dilemma, even when help was near at hand. 

Our voyagers, whom we left in mid-air and 
stream, were soon descending again, and this time 
they threw out their tackle — anchor, ropes, and other 
gear, still without adequately mending matters. Then 
their case grew desperate. The French coast was, in- 
deed, well in sight, but there seemed but slender chance 
of reaching it when they began divesting themselves 
of clothing as a last resort. The upshot of this was 
remarkable, and deserves a moment's consideration- 



THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 2? 

When a balloon has been lightened almost to the ut- 
most the discharge of a small weight sometimes has 
a magical effect, as is not difficult to understand. 
Throwing out ten pounds at an early stage, when there 
may be five hundred pounds more of superfluous weight, 
will tell but little, but when those five hundred pounds 
are expended then an extra ten pounds scraped to- 
gether from somewhere and cast overboard may cause 
a balloon to make a giant stride into space by way of 
final effort ; and it was so with M. Blanchard, His 
expiring balloon shot up and over the approaching 
land, and came safely to earth near the Forest of 
Guiennes. A magnificent feast was held at Calais to 
celebrate the above event. M. Blanchard was pre- 
sented with the freedom of the city in a gold box, 
and application was made to the Ministry to have the 
balloon purchased and deposited as a memorial in 
the church. On the testimony of the grandson of 
Dr. Jeffries the car of this balloon is now in the museum 
of the same city. 

A very noteworthy example of how a balloon may 
be made to take a fresh lease of life is supplied by a 
voyage of M. Testu about this date, which must find 
brief mention in these pages. In one aspect it is 
laughable, in another it is sublime. From every point 
of view it is romantic. 

It was four o'clock on a threatening day in June 
when the solitary aeronaut took flight from Paris in 
a small hydrogen balloon only partially filled, but 
rigged with some contrivance of wings which were 
designed to render it self-propelling. Discovering, 
however, that this device was inoperative, M. Testu, 



28 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

after about an hour and a half, allowed the balloon 
to descend to earth in a corn field, when, without quit- 
ting hold of the car, he commenced collecting stones 
for ballast. But as yet he knew not the ways of churl- 
ish proprietors of land, and in consequence was pre- 
sently surprised by a troublesome crowd, who pro- 
ceeded, as they supposed, to take him prisoner till 
he should pay heavy compensation, dragging him off 
to the nearest village by the trail rope of his balloon. 

M. Testu now had leisure to consider his situation, 
and presently hit on a stratagem the like of which has 
often since been adopted by aeronauts in like pre- 
dicament. Representing to his captors that without 
his wings he would be powerless, he suffered them to 
remove these weighty appendages, when also dropping 
a heavy cloak, he suddenly cut the cord by which he 
was being dragged, and, regaining freedom, soared 
away into the sky. He was quickly high aloft, and 
heard thunder below him, soon after which, the chill 
of evening beginning to bring him earthward, he 
descried a hunt in full cry, and succeeded in coming 
down near the huntsmen, some of whom galloped up to 
him, and for their benefit he ascended again, passing 
this time into dense cloud with thunder and lightning. 
He saw the sun go down and the lightning gather 
round, yet with admirable courage he lived the night 
out aloft till the storms were spent and the midsummer 
sun rose once more. With daylight restored, his jour- 
ney ended at a spot over sixty miles from Paris. 

We have, of course, recounted only a few of the 
more noteworthy early ballooning ventures. In reality 
there had up to the present time been scores of ascents 






THE INVENTION OF THE BALLOON. 29 

made in different localities and in all conditions of 
wind and weather, yet not a life had been lost. We 
have now, however, to record a casualty which cost 
the first and boldest aeronaut his life, and which is 
all the more regrettable as being due to circumstances 
that should never have occurred. 

M. Pilatre de Rosier, accompanied by M. Romain, 
determined on crossing the Channel from the French 
side ; and, thinking to add to their buoyancy and 
avoid the risk of falling in the seq,, hit on the extra- 
ordinary idea of using a fire balloon beneath another 
filled with hydrogen gas ! With this deadly com- 
pound machine they actually ascended from Boulogne, 
and had not left the land when the inevitable catas- 
trophe took place, 

The balloons caught fire and blew up at a height 
of 3,000 feet, while the unfortunate voyagers were 
dashed to atoms. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 

AS may be supposed, it was not long before the 
balloon was introduced into England. Indeed, 
the first successful ascent on record made in our own 
country took place in the summer of 1784, ten months 
previous to the fatal venture narrated at the close of 
the last chapter. Now, it is a remarkable and equally 
regrettable circumstance that though the first ascent 
on British soil was undoubtedly made by one of our own 
countrymen, the fact is almost universally forgotten, 
or ignored, and the credit is accorded to a foreigner. 

Let us in strict honesty examine into the case. 
Vincent Lunardi, an Italian, Secretary to the Neapoli- 
tan Ambassador, Prince Caramanico, being in England 
in the year 1784, determined on organising and per- 
sonally executing an ascent from London ; and his 
splendid enterprise, which was presently carried to a 
successful issue, will form the principal subject of 
the present chapter. It will be seen that remarkable 
success crowned his efforts, and that his first and ever 
memorable voj^age was carried through on September 
15th of that year. 

More than a month previously, however, attention 
had been called to the fact that a Mr. Tytler was pre- 
paring to make an ascent from Edinburgh in a hot air 
balloon, and in the London Chronicle of August 27th 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 3 

occurs the following circumstantial and remarkable 
letter from a correspondent to that journal : — 

Edinburgh, Aug. 27, 1784. 

Mr. Tytler has made several improvements upon his fire 
balloon. The reason of its failure formerly was its being made 
of porous linen, through which the air made its escape. To 
remedy this defect, Mr. Tytler has got it covered with a var- 
nish to retain the inflammable air after the balloon is filled. 

Early this morning this bold adventurer took his first 
aerial flight. The balloon being filled at Comely Garden, he 
seated himself in the basket, and the ropes being cut he 
ascended very high and descended quite gradually on the road 
to Restalrig, about half a mile from the place where he rose, 
to the great satisfaction of those spectators who were present. 
Mr. Tytler went up without the furnace this morning ; when 
that is added he will be able to feed the balloon with inflam- 
mable air, and continue his aerial excursions as long as he 
chooses. 

Mr. Tytler is now in high spirits, and in his turn laughs at 
those infidels who ridiculed his scheme as visionary and im- 
practicable. Mr. Tytler is the first person in Great Britain 
who has navigated the air. 

Referring to this exploit, Tytler, in a laudatory 
epistle addressed to Lunardi, tells of the difficulties 
he had had to contend with, and artlessly reveals the 
cool, confident courage he must have displayed. No 
shelter being available for the inflation, and a strong 
wind blowing, his first misfortune was the setting fire 
to his wicker gallery. The next was the capsizing 
and damaging of his balloon, which he had lined with 
paper. He now substituted a coat of varnish for the 
paper, and his gallery being destroyed, so that he could 
no longer attempt to take up a stove, he resolved to 



32 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

ascend without one. In the end the balloon was suc- 
cessfully inflated, when he had the hardihood to en- 
trust himself to a small basket (used for carrying earth- 
enware) slung below, and thus to launch himself into 
the sky. He did so under the conviction that the 
risk he ran was greater than it really was, for he argued 
that his craft was now only like a projectile, and " must 
undoubtedly come to the ground with the same ve- 
locity with which it ascended." On this occasion the 
crowd tried for some time to hold him near the ground 
by one of the restraining ropes, so that his flight was 
curtailed. In a second experiment, however, he suc- 
ceeded in rising some hundreds of feet, and came to 
earth without mishap. 

But little further information respecting Mr. 
Tytler is apparently forthcoming, and therefore be- 
yond recording the fact that he was the first British 
aeronaut, and also that he was the first to achieve a 
balloon ascent in Great Britain, we are unable to make 
further mention of him in this history. 

Of his illustrious contemporary already mentioned 
there is, on the contrary, much to record, and 
we would desire to give full credit to his admirable 
courage and perseverance. It was with a certain 
national and pardonable pride that the young Italian 
planned his bold exploit, feeling with a sense of self- 
satisfaction, which he is at no pains to hide, that he 
aimed at winning honour for his country as well as 
for himself. In a letter which he wrote to his guardian, 
Chevalier Gherardo Compagni, he alludes to the stolid 
indifference of the English people and philosophers to 
the brilliant achievements in aeronautics which had 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 33 

been made and so much belauded on the Continent 
He proclaims the rivalry as regards science and art 
existing between France and England, attributing to 
the latter an attitude of sullen jealousy. At the same 
time he is fully alive to the necessity of gaining 
English patronage, and sets about securing this with 
tactful diplomacy. First he casts about for a suit- 
able spot where his enterprise would not fail to enlist 
general attention and perhaps powerful patrons, and 
here he is struck by the attractions and facilities 
offered by Chelsea Hospital. He therefore applies to 
Sir George Howard, the Governor, asking for the use 
of the famous hospital, to which, on the occasion of 
his experiments, he desires that admittance should 
only be granted to subscribers, while any profits 
should be devoted to the pensioners of the hospital. 
His application having been granted, he assures his 
guardian that he " still maintains his mental balance, 
and his sleep is not banished by the magnitude of his 
enterprise, which is destined to lead him through the 
path of danger to glory." 

This letter was dated the 15th of July, and by the 
beginning of August his advertisement was already 
before the public, inviting subscribers and announcing 
a private view of his balloon at the Lyceum, where it 
was in course of construction, and was being fitted 
with contrivances of his own in the shape of oars 
and sails. He had by this time not only enlisted 
the interest of Sir George Howard, and of Sir Joseph 
Banks, but had secured the direct patronage of the 
King. 

But within a fortnight a most unforeseen mishap 
D 



34 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

had occurred, which threatened to overwhelm Lunardi 
in disappointment and ruin. A Frenchman of the 
name of Moret, designing to turn to his own advertise- 
ment the attention attracted by Lunardi's approach- 
ing trials, attempted to forestall the event by an enter- 
prise of his own, announcing that he would make an 
ascent with a hot air balloon in some gardens near 
Chelsea Hospital, and at a date previous to that fixed 
upon by Lunardi. In attempting, however, to carry 
out this unworthy project the adventurer met with 
the discomfiture he deserved. He failed to effect his 
inflation, and when after fruitless attempts continued 
for three hours, his balloon refused to rise, a large 
crowd, estimated at 60,000, assembled outside, broke 
into the enclosure, committing havoc on all sides, not 
unattended with acts of violence and robbery. 

The whole neighbourhood became alarmed, and it 
followed as a matter of course that Lunardi was peremp- 
torily ordered to discontinue his preparations, and 
to announce in the public press that his ascent from 
Chelsea Hospital was forbidden. Failure and ruin now 
stared the young enthusiast in the face, and it was 
simply the generous feeling of the British public, and 
the desire to see fair play, that gave him another 
chance. As it was, he became the hero of the hour ; 
thousands flocked to the show rooms at the Lyceum, 
and he shortly obtained fresh grounds, together with 
needfu' protection for his project, at the hands of the 
Hon. Artillery Company. By the 15th of September all 
incidental difficulties, the mere enumeration of which 
would unduly swell these pages, had been overcome 
by sheer persistence, and Lunardi stood in the 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 35 

enclosure allotted him, his preparations in due order, 
with 150,000 souls, who had formed for hours a dense 
mass of spectators, watching intently and now con- 
fidently the issue of his bold endeavour. 

But his anxieties were as yet far from over, for a 
London crowd had never yet witnessed a balloon 
ascent, while but a month ago they had seen and 
wreaked their wrath upon the failure of an adventurer. 
They were not likely to be more tolerant now. And 
when the advertised hour for departure had arrived, 
and the balloon remained inadequately inflated, mat- 
ters began to take a more serious turn. Half an hour 
later they approached a crisis, when it began to be 
known that the balloon still lacked buoyancy, and 
that the supply of gas was manifestly insufficient. 
The impatience of the mob indeed was kept in restraint 
by one man alone. This man was the Prince of Wales, 
who, refusing to join the company within the building, 
and careless of the attitude of the crowd, remained 
near the balloon to check disorder and unfair treat- 
ment. 

But an hour after time the balloon still rested inert, 
and then, with fine resolution, Lunardi tried one last 
expedient. He bade his colleague, Mr. Biggen, who 
was to have ascended with him, remain behind, and 
quietly substituting a smaller and lighter wicker car, 
or rather gallery, took his place within and severed 
the cords just as the last gun fired. The Prince of 
Wales raised his hat, imitated at once by all the 
bystanders, and the first balloon that ever quitted 
English soil rose into the air amid the extravagant 
enthusiasm of the multitude. The intrepid aeronaut, 



36 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

pardonably excited, and fearful lest he should not be 
seen within the gallery, made frantic efforts to attract 
attention by waving his flag, and worked his oars so 
vigorously that one of them broke and fell. A pigeon 
also gained its freedom and escaped. The voyager ? 
however, still retained companions in his venture — 
a dog and a cat. 

Following his own account, Lunardi's first act on 
finding himself fairly above the town was to fortify 
himself with some glasses of wine, and to devour the 
leg of a chicken. He describes the city as a vast bee- 
hive, St. Paul's and other churches standing out pro- 
minently ; the streets shrunk to lines, and all hu- 
manity apparently transfixed and watching him. A 
little later he is equally struck with the view of the 
open country, and his ecstasy is pardonable in a novice. 
The verdant pastures eclipsed the visions of his own 
lands. The precision of boundaries impressed him 
with a sense of law and order, and of good adminis- 
tration in the country where he was a sojourner. 

By this time he found his balloon, which had 
been only two-thirds full at starting, to be so dis- 
tended that he was obliged to untie the mouth to re- 
lease the strain. He also found that the condensed 
moisture round the neck had frozen. These two 
statements point to his having reached a considerable 
altitude, which is intelligible enough. It is, however, 
difficult to believe his further assertion that by the 
use of his single oar he succeeded in working himself 
down to within a few hundred feet c* the earth. The 
descent of the balloon must, in point of fact, have 
been due to a copious outrush of gas at his former alti- 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 37 

tude. Had his oar really been effective in working 
the balloon down it would not have needed the dis- 
charge of ballast presently spoken of to cause it to re- 
ascend. Anyhow, he found himself sufficiently near 
the earth to land a passenger who was anxious to get 
out. His cat had not been comfortable in the cold 
upper regions, and now at its urgent appeal was 
deposited in a corn field, which was the point of first 
contact with the earth. It was carefully received by 
a country-woman, who promptly sold it to a gentle- 
man on the other side of the hedge, who had been 
pursuing the balloon. 

The first ascent of a balloon in England was de- 
serving of some record, and an account alike circum- 
stantial and picturesque is forthcoming. The novel 
and astonishing sight was witnessed by a Hertford- 
shire farmer, whose testimony, published by Lunardi 
in the same )^ear, runs as follows : — 

This deponent on his oath sayeth that, being on Wednes- 
day, the 15 th day of September instant, between the hours 
of three and four in the afternoon, in a certain field called 
Etna, in the parish of North Mimms aforesaid, he perceived 
a large machine sailing in the air, near the place where he 
was on horseback • that the machine continuing to approach 
the earth, the part of it in which this deponent perceived a 
gentleman standing came to the ground, and dragged a short 
way on the ground in a slanting direction ; that the time 
when this machine thus touched the earth was, as near as 
this deponent could judge, about a quarter before four in the 
afternoon. That this deponent being on horseback, and his 
horse restive, he could not approach nearer to the machine 
than about four poles, but that he could plainly perceive therein 
a gentleman dressed in light coloured cloaths, holding in his 
hand a trumpet, which had the appearance of silver or bright 



$S THE/DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

tin. That by this time several harvest men coming up from 
the other part of the field, to the number of twelve men and 
thirteen women, this deponent called to them to endeavour 
to stop the machine, which the men attempted, but the gen- 
tleman in the machine desiring them to desist, and the machine 
moving with considerable rapidity, and clearing the earth, 
went offdn a north direction and continued in sight at a very 
great height for near an hour afterwards. And this deponent 
further saith that the part of the machine in the which the 
gentleman stood did not actually touch the ground for more 
than half a minute, during which time the gentleman threw out 
a parcel of what appeared to this deponent as dry sand. 
That after the machine had ascended again from the earth 
this deponent perceived a grapple with four hooks, which hung 
from the bottom of the machine, dragging along the ground, 
which carried up with it into the air a small parcel of loose oats, 
which the women were raking in the field. And this deponent 
further on his oath sayeth that when the machine had risen 
clear from the ground about twenty yards the gentleman spoke 
to this deponent and to the rest of the people with his trumpet, 
wishing them goodbye and saying that he should soon go out 
of sight. And this deponent further on his oath sayeth that 
the machine in which the gentleman came down to earth 
appeared to consist of two distinct parts connected together 
by ropes, namely that in which the gentleman appeared to be, 
a stage boarded at the bottom, and covered with netting and 
ropes on the sides about four feet and a half high, and the 
other part of the machine appeared in the shape of an urn, 
about thirty feet high and of about the same diameter, made 
of canvas like oil skin, with green, red, and yellow stripes. 

Nathaniel Whitbread. 

Sworn before me this twentieth day of September, 1784, 
William Baker. 

It was a curious fact, pointed out to the brave 
Italian by a resident, that the field in which the tem- 
porary descent had been made was called indifferently 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 39 

Etna or Italy, " from the circumstance which attended 
the late enclosure of a large quantity of roots, rubbish, 
etc., having been collected there, and having continued 
burning for many daj/s. The common people having 
heard of a burning mountain in Italy gave the field 
that name." 

But the voyage did not end at Etna. The, as yet, 
inexperienced aeronaut now cast out all available 
ballast in the shape of sand, as also his provisions, and 
rising with great speed, soon reached a greater alti- 
tude than before, which he sought to still farther in- 
crease bj 7 throwing down his plates, knives, and forks. 
In this somewhat reckless expenditure he thought him- 
self justified by the reliance he placed on his oar, and 
it is not surprising that in the end he owns that he 
owed his safety in his final descent to his good fortune. 
The narrative condensed concludes thus : — 

" At twenty minutes past four I descended in 
a meadow near Ware. Some labourers were at work 
in it. I requested their assistance, but they exclaimed 
they would have nothing to do with one who came 
on the Devil's Horse, and no entreaties could pre- 
vail on them to approach me. I at last owed my de- 
liverance to a young woman in the field who took 
hold of a cord I had thrown out, and, calling to the 
men, they }delded that assistance at her request 
which they had refused to mine." 

As may be supposed, Lunardi's return to London 
resembled a royal progress. Indeed, he was wel- 
comed as a conqueror to whom the whole town sought 
to do honour, and perhaps his greatest gratification 
came by way of the accounts he gathered of incidents 



40 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

which occurred during his eventful voyage. At a 
dinner at which he was being entertained by the 
Lord Mayor and judges he learned that a lady seeing 
his falling oar, and fancying that he himself was 
dashed to pieces, received a shock thereby which 
caused her death. Commenting on this, one of the 
judges bade him be reassured, inasmuch as he had, 
as if by compensation, saved the life of a young man 
who might live to be reformed. The young man was 
a criminal whose condemnation was regarded as cer- 
tain at the hands of the jury before whom he was 
being arraigned, when tidings reached the court that 
Lunardi's balloon was in the air. On this so much 
confusion arose that the jury were unable to give due 
deliberation to the case, and, fearing to miss the 
great sight, actually agreed to acquit the prisoner, 
that they themselves might be free to leave the court ! 

But he was flattered by a compliment of a yet 
higher order. He was told that while he hovered 
over London the King was in conference with his 
principal Ministers, and his Majesty, learning that he 
was in the sky, is reported to have said to his coun- 
cillors, ' ' We may resume our own deliberations at 
pleasure, but we may never see poor Lunardi again ! 5! 
On this, it is further stated that the conference broke 
up, and the King, attended by Mr. Pitt and other 
chief officers of State, continued to view Lunardi 
through telescopes as long as he remained in the 
horizon. 

The public Press, notably the Morning Post of 
September 16, paid a worthy tribute to the hero of 
the hour, and one last act of an exceptional character 



^£ft 




m mk*1!!t" 






IP 


' % wK' 


ffsuv 


m J ■'"# 




^fc# 


i 





Photos by the Author. 



1. VINCENT LUNARDI. 

2. LUNARDI'S BALLOON. 

3. THE LUNARDI STONE NEAR WARE. 



THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND. 41 

was carried out in his honour, and remains in evidence 
to this hour. In a meadow in the parish of Standon, 
near Ware, there stands a rough hewn stone, now 
protected by an iron rail. It marks the spot where 
Lunardi landed, and on it is cut a legend which runs 
thus : 

Let Posterity know 
And knowing be astonished 
that 
On the 15 th day of September 1784 
Vincent Lunardi of Lusca in- Tuscany 
The first aerial traveller in Britain 
Mounting from the Artillery Ground 
In London 
And 
Traversing the Regions of the Air 
For Two Hours and Fifteen Minutes 
In this Spot 
Revisited the Earth. 
On this rude monument 
For ages be recorded 
That Wondrous Enterprise 

Successfully atchieved 
By the Powers of Chemistry 
And the Fortitude of Man 
That Improvement in Science 
Which 
The Great Author of all Knowledge 
Patronyzing by His Providence 
The Invention of Mankind 
Hath graciously permitted 
To Their Benefit 
And 
His own Eternal Glory. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY. 

IN less than two years not only had the science of 
ballooning reached almost its highest develop- 
ment, but the balloon itself, as an aerostatic machine, 
had been brought to a state of perfection which 
has been but little improved upon up to the 
present hour. Better or cheaper methods of in- 
flation were yet to be discovered, lighter and more 
suitable material remained to be manufactured ; but 
the navigation of the air, which hitherto through all 
time had been beyond man's grasp, had been attained, 
as it were, at a bound, and at the hands of many dif- 
ferent and independent experimentalists was being 
pursued with almost the same degree of success and 
safety as to-day . 

Nor was this all. There was yet another tri- 
umph of the aeronautical art which, within the same 
brief period, had been to all intents and purposes 
achieved, even if it had not been brought to the same 
state of perfection as at the present hour. This 
was the Parachute. This fact is one which for a 
sufficient reason is not generally known. It is very 
commonly supposed that the parachute, in anything 
like its present form, is a very modern device, and that 
the art of successfully using it had not been intro- 
duced to the world even so lately as thirty years ago. 
Thus, we find it stated in works of that date dealing 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY. 43 

with the subject that disastrous consequences almost 
necessarily attended the use of the parachute, " the 
defects of which had been attempted to be remedied 
in various ways, but up to this time without success." 
A more correct statement, however, would have been 
that the art of constructing and using a practicable 
parachute had through many years been lost or for- 
gotten. In actual fact, it had been adopted with 
every assurance of complete success by the year 1785, 
when Blanchard by its means lowered dogs and other 
animals with safety from a balloon. A few years 
later he descended himself in a like apparatus from 
Basle, meeting, however, with the misadventure of 
a broken leg. 

But we must go much further back for the actual 
conception of the parachute, which, we might suppose, 
may originally have been suggested by the easy 
floating motion with which certain seeds or leaves 
will descend from lofty trees, or by the mode adopted 
by birds of dropping softly to earth with out-stretched 
wings. M. de la Loubere, in his historical account of 
Siam, which he visited in 1687-88, speaks of an in- 
genious athlete who exceedingly diverted the King 
and his court by leaping from a height and supporting 
himself in the air by two umbrellas, the handles of 
which were affixed to his girdle. In 1783, that is, the 
same year as that in which the balloon was invented, 
M. le Normand experimented with a like umbrella- 
shaped contrivance, with a view to its adoption as a 
fire escape, and he demonstrated the soundness of the 
principle by descending himself from the windows 
of a lofty house at Lyons. 



44 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

It was, however, reserved for M. Jacques Garnerin 
in 1797 to make the first parachute descent that 
attracted general attention. Garnerin had previously 
been detained as a State prisoner in the fortress of 
Bude, in Hungar)/, after the battle of Marchiennes 
in 1793, and during his confinement had pondered 
on the possibility of effecting his escape by a para- 
chute. His solitary cogitations and calculations 
resulted, after his release, in the invention and con- 
struction of an apparatus which he put to a practical 
test at Paris before the court of France on October 
22nd, 1797. Ascending in a hydrogen balloon to 
the height of about 2,000 feet, he unhesitatingly cut 
himself adrift, when for some distance he dropped 
like a stone. The folds of his apparatus, however, 
opening suddenly, his fall became instantly checked. 
The remainder of his descent, though leisurely, occu- 
pying, in fact, some twelve minutes, appeared to the 
spectators to be attended with uncertainty, owing 
to a swinging motion set up in the car to which he 
was clinging. But the fact remains that he reached 
the earth with only slight impact, and entirely with- 
out injury. 

It appears that Garnerin subsequently made many 
equally successful parachute descents in France, 
and during the short peace of 1802 visited London, 
where he gave an exhibition of his art. From the 
most reliable accounts of his exploit it would seem 
that his drop was from a very great height, and that 
a strong ground wind was blowing at the time, the 
result of which was that wild, wide oscillations were 
set up in the car, which narrowly escaped bringing 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY. 45 

him in contact with the house tops in St. Pancras, 
and eventually swung him down into a field, not 
without some unpleasant scratches. 

Nor was Garnerin the only successful parachutist 
at this period. A Polish aeronaut, Jordaki Kuparento, 
ascended from Warsaw on the 24th of July, 1804, in 
a hot air balloon, taking up, as was the custom, an 
attached furnace, which caused the balloon to take 
fire when at a great height. Kuparento, however, 
who was alone, had as a precaution provided himself 
with a parachute, and with this he seems to have 
found no difficulty in effecting a safe descent to earth. 

It was many years after this that fresh experi- 
mentalists, introducing parachutes on new lines and 
faulty in construction, met with death or disaster. 
Enough, however, has already been said to show 
that in the early years we are now traversing in this 
history a perfectly practicable parachute had be- 
come an accomplished fact. The early form is well 
described by Mr. Monck Mason in a letter to the 
Morning Herald in 1837, written on the eve of an un- 
rehearsed and fatal experiment made by Mr. Cocking, 
which must receive notice in due course. " The 
principle," writes Mr. Monck Mason, " upon which 
all these parachutes were constructed is the same, 
and consists simply of a flattened dome of silk or 
linen from 24 feet to 28 feet in diameter. From the 
outer margin all around at stated intervals proceed 
a large number of cords, in length about the dia- 
meter of the dome itself, which, being collected to- 
gether in one point and made fast to another of su- 
perior dimensions attached to the apex of the machine, 



46 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

serve to maintain it in its form when expanded in 
the progress of the descent. To this centre cord like- 
wise, at a distance below the point of junction, vary- 
ing according to the fancy of the aeronaut, is fixed 
the car or basket in which he is seated, and the whole 
suspended from the network of the balloon in such 
a manner as to be capable of being detached in an 
instant at the will of the individual by cutting the 
rope by which it is made fast above." 

It followed almost as a matter of course that so 
soon as the balloon had been made subject to some- 
thing like due control, and thus had become recog- 
nised as a new machine fairly reduced to the service 
of man, it began to be regarded as an instrument 
w T hich should be made capable of being devoted to 
scientific research. Indeed, it may be claimed that, 
among the very earliest aeronauts, those who had 
sailed away into the skies and brought back in- 
telligent observations or impressions of the realm 
of cloud-land, or who had only described their 
own sensations at lofty altitudes, had already con- 
tributed facts of value to science. It is time then, 
taking events in their due sequence, that mention 
should be made of the endeavours of various savants, 
who began about the commencement of the nine- 
teenth century to gather fresh knowledge from the 
exploration of the air by balloon ascents organised 
with fitting equipment. The time had now come for 
promoting the balloon to higher purposes than those 
of mere exhibition or amusement. In point of fact, 
it had already in one way been turned to serious prac- 
tical account. It had been used by the French during 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY. 47 

military operations in the revolutionary war as a 
mode of reconnoitring, and not without success, so 
that when after due trial the war balloon was judged 
of value a number of similar balloons were constructed 
for the use of the various divisions of the French 
army, and, as will be told in its proper place, one, 
at least, of these was put to a positive test before 
the battle of Fleurus. 

But, returning to more strictly scientific ascents, 
which began to be mooted at this, period, we are at 
once impressed with the widespread influence which 
the balloon was exercising on thinking minds. We 
note this from the fact that what must be claimed 
to be the first genuine ascent for scientific observa- 
tion was made in altogether fresh ground, and at so 
distant a spot as St. Petersburg. 

It was now the year 1804, and the Russian Academy 
had determined on attempting an examination of the 
physical condition of the higher atmosphere by means 
of the balloon. The idea had probably been suggested 
by scientific observations which had already been 
made on mountain heights by such explorers as De 
Luc, Saussure, Humboldt, and others. And now it 
was determined that their results should be tested 
alongside such observations as could be gathered in 
the free heaven far removed from any disturbing 
effects that might be caused by contiguity to earth* 
The lines of enquiry to which special attention was 
required were such as would be naturally suggested 
by the scientific knowledge of the hour, though they 
may read somewhat quaintly to-day. Would there 
be any change in the intensity of the magnetic force ? 



48 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Any change in the inclination of the magnetised needle ? 
Would evaporation find a new law ? Would solar 
rays increase in power ? What amount of electric 
matter would be found ? What change in the colours 
produced by the prism ? What would be the con- 
stitution of the higher and more attenuated air ? 
What physical effect would it have on human and 
bird life ? 

The ascent was made at 7.15 on a summer even- 
ing by M. Robertson and the Academician, M. Sacharof , 
to whom we are indebted for the following rseumS of 
notes, which have a special value as being the first 
of their class. Rising slowly, a difference of at- 
mosphere over the Neva gave the balloon a downward 
motion, necessitating the discharge of ballast. As 
late as 8.45 p.m. a fine view was obtained of the 
Newski Islands, and the whole course of the neigh- 
bouring river. At 9.20 p.m., when the barometer 
had fallen from 30 inches to 23 inches, a canary and 
a dove were dismissed, the former falling precipi- 
tately, while the latter sailed down to a village below. 
All available ballast was now thrown out, including 
a spare great coat and the remains of supper, with the 
result that at 9.30 the barometer had fallen to 22 
inches, and at this height they caught sight of the 
upper rim of the sun. The action of heart and 
lungs remained normal. No stars were seen, though 
the sky was mainly clear, such clouds as were visible 
appearing white and at a great height. The echo 
of a speaking trumpet was heard after an interval 
of ten seconds. This was substantially the outcome 
of the experiments. The practical difficulties of 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY: 49 

carrying out prearranged observations amid the in- 
convenience of balloon travel were much felt. Their 
instruments were seriously damaged, and their re- 
sults, despite most painstaking and praiseworthy 
efforts, must be regarded as somewhat disappointing. 

But ere the autumn of the same year two other 
scientific ascents, admirably schemed and financed 
at the public expense, had been successfully carried 
out at Paris in a war balloon which, as will be told, 
had at this time been returned from military opera- 
tions in Egypt. In the first of these, Gay Lussac 
ascended in company with M. Biot, with very com- 
plete equipment. Choosing ten o'clock in the morn- 
ing for their hour of departure, they quickly entered 
a region of thin, but wet fog, after which they 
shot up into denser cloud, which they completely 
surmounted at a height of 6,500 feet, when they 
described the upper surface as bearing the resem- 
blance, familiar enough to aeronauts and moun- 
taineers, as of a white sea broken up into gently 
swelling billows, or of an extended plain covered with 
snow. 

A series of simple experiments now embarked upon 
showed the behaviour of magnetised iron, as also of 
a galvanic pile or battery, to remain unaltered. As 
their altitude increased their pulses quickened, though 
beyond feeling keenly the contrast of a colder air and 
of scorching rays of the sun they experienced no phy- 
sical discomfort. At 11,000 feet a linnet which 
they liberated fell to the earth almost helplessly, 
while a pigeon with difficulty maintained an irregular 
and precipitate flight. A carefully compiled record was 
E 



50 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

made of variations of temperature and humidity, and 
they succeeded in determining that the upper air was 
charged with negative electricity. In all this these 
two accomplished physicists may be said to have 
carried out a brilliant achievement, even though their 
actual results may seem somewhat meagre. They 
not only were their own aeronauts, but succeeded 
in arranging and carrying out continuous and sys- 
tematic observations throughout the period of their 
remaining in the sky. 

This voyage was regarded as such a pronounced 
success that three weeks later, in mid-September, 
Gay Lussac was induced to ascend again, this time 
alone, and under circumstances that should enable 
him to reach an exceptionally high altitude. Ex- 
perience had taught the advisability of certain modi- 
fications in his equipment. A magnet was ingeniously 
slung with a view of testing its oscillation even in 
spite of accidental gyrations in the balloon. Ther- 
mometers and hygrometers were carefully sheltered 
from the direct action of the sun, and exhausted flasks 
were supplied with the object of bringing down 
samples of upper air for subsequent analysis. 

Again it was an early morning ascent, with a 
barometer on the ground standing at 30.6 inches, 
and a slightly misty air. Lussac appears to have ac- 
complished the exceedingly difficult task of counting 
the oscillations of his magnet with satisfaction to 
himself. At 10,000 feet twenty vibrations occupied 
83 seconds, as compared with 84.33 seconds at the 
earth's surface. The variation of the compass re- 
mained unaltered, as also the behaviour of magnetised 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY. 51 

iron at all altitudes. Keeping his balloon under 
perfect control, and maintaining a uniform and 
steady ascent, he at the same time succeeded in 
compiling an accurate table of readings recording 
atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity, and 
it is interesting to find that he was confronted with 
an apparent anomaly which will commonly present 
itself to the aeronaut observer. Up to 12,000 feet 
the temperature had decreased consistently from 
82° to 47 , after which it increased 6° in the next 
2,000 feet. This by no means uncommon experi- 
ence shall be presently discussed. The balloon was 
now steadily manoeuvred up to 18,636 feet, at which 
height freezing point was practically reached. Then 
with a further climb 20,000 feet. is recorded, at which 
altitude the ardent philosopher could still attend to 
his magnetic observations, nor is his arduous and un- 
assisted task abandoned here, but with marvellous 
pertinacity he yet struggled upwards till a height 
of no less than 23,000 feet is recorded, and the ther- 
mometer had sunk to 14 F. Four miles and a quarter 
above the level of the sea, reached by a solitary aerial 
explorer, whose legitimate training lay apart from 
aeronautics, and whose main care was the observa- 
tion of the philosophical instruments he carried ! 
The achievement of this French savant makes a 
brilliant record in the early pages of our history* 

It is not surprising that Lussac should own to 
having felt no inconsiderable personal discomfort be- 
fore his venture was over. In spite of warm cloth- 
ing he suffered greatly from cold and benumbed 
fingers, not less also from laboured breathing and a 



52 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

quickened pulse ; headache supervened, and his 
throat became parched and unable to swallow food. 
In spite of all, he conducted the descent with 
the utmost skill, climbing down quietly and 
gradually till he alighted with gentle ease at St. 
Gourgen, near Rouen. It may be mentioned here 
that the analysis of the samples of air which he had 
brought down proved them to contain the normal pro- 
portion of oxygen, and to be essentially identical, as 
tested in the laboratory, with the free air secured 
at the surface of the earth. 

The sudden and apparently unaccountable varia- 
tion in temperature recorded by Lussac is a striking 
revelation to an aerial observer, and becomes yet 
more marked when more sensitive instruments are 
used than those which were taken up on the occasion 
just related. It will be recorded in a future chapter 
how more suitable instruments came in course of 
time to be devised. It is only necessary to point 
out at this stage that instruments which lack due 
sensibility will unavoidably read too high in ascents, 
and too low in descents where, according to the general 
law, the air is found to grow constantly colder with 
elevation above the earth's surface. It is strong evi- 
dence of considerable efficiency in the instruments, 
and of careful attention on the part of the observer, 
that Lussac was able to record the temporary in- 
version of the law of change of temperature above- 
mentioned. Had he possessed modern instrumental 
equipment he would have brought down a yet more 
remarkable account of the upper regions which he 
visited, and learned that the variations of heat and 



DEVELOPMENT OF BALLOON PHILOSOPHY; 53 

cold were considerably more striking than he sup- 
posed. 

With a specially devised instrument used with 
special precautions, the writer, as will be shown here- 
after, has been able to prove that the temperature 
of the air, as traversed in the wayward course of a 
balloon, is probably far more variable and complex 
than has been recorded by most observers. 

The exceptional height claimed to have been 
reached by Gay Lassac need not for a moment be 
questioned, and the fact that he did not experience 
the same personal inconvenience as has been com- 
plained of by mountain climbers at far less altitudes 
admits of ready explanation. The physical exertion 
demanded of the mountaineer is entirely absent in 
the case of an aeronaut who is sailing at perfect ease 
in a free balloon. Moreover, it must be remembered 
that — a most important consideration — the aerial 
voyager, necessarily travelling with the wind, is un- 
conscious, save at exceptional moments, of any breeze 
whatever, and it is a well-established fact that a degree 
of cold which might be insupportable when a breeze 
is stirring may be but little felt in dead calm. It 
should also be remembered, in duly regarding Gay 
Lussac's remarkable record, that this was not his first 
experience of high altitudes, and it is an acknow- 
ledged truth that an aeronaut, especially if he be an 
enthusiast, quickly becomes acclimatised to his new 
element, and sufficiently inured to its occasional 
rigours. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 

DURING certain years which now follow it will 
possibly be thought that our history, so far as 
incidents of special interest are concerned, somewhat 
languishes. Yet it may be wrong to regard this 
period as one of stagnation or retrogression. 

Before passing on to later annals, however, we 
must duly chronicle certain exceptional achievements 
and endeavours as yet unmentioned, which stand out 
prominently in the period we have been regarding, 
as also in the advancing years of the new century. 
Among these must in justice be included those which 
come into the remarkable, if somewhat pathetic, 
subsequent career of the brilliant, intrepid Lunardi. 

Compelling everywhere unbounded admiration, 
he readily secured the means necessary for carry- 
ing out further exploits wherever he desired, 
while at the same time he met with a measure 
of good fortune in freedom from misadventure 
such as has generally been denied to less bold 
adventurers. Within a few months of the time 
when we left him, the popular hero and happy recipi- 
ent of civic and royal favours, we find him in Scot- 
land attempting feats which a knowledge of practical 
difficulties bids us regard as extraordinary. 

To begin with, nothing' appears more remarkable 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 55 

than the ease, expedition, and certainty with which 
in days when necessary facilities must have been far 
harder to come by than now, he could always fill his 
balloon by the usually tedious and troublesome 
mode attending hydrogen inflation. We see him at 
his first Scottish ascent, completing the operation in 
little more than two hours. It is the same later at 
Glasgow, w r here, commencing with only a portion of 
his apparatus, he finds the inflation actually to pro- 
ceed too rapidly for his purpose, and has to hold the 
powers at his command strongly in check. Later, 
in December weather, having still further improved 
his apparatus, he makes his balloon support itself 
after the inflation of only ten minutes. Then, as if 
assured of impunity, he treats recognised risks with 
a species of contempt. At Kelso he hails almost with 
joy the fact that the wind must carry him rapidly 
towards the sea, which in the end he narrowly escapes. 
At Glasgow the chances of safe landing are still more 
against him, yet he has no hesitation in starting, 
and at last the catastrophe he seemed to court ac- 
tually overtook him, and he plumped into the sea 
near Berwick, where no sail was even in sight, and a 
winter's night coming on. From this predicament 
he was rescued by a special providence which once 
before had not deserted him, when in a tumult of 
violent and contrary currents, and at a great height 
to boot, his gallery was almost completely carried 
away, and he had to cling on to the hoop desperately 
with both hands. 

Then we lose sight of the dauntless, light-hearted 
Italian for one-and-twenty years, when in the 



56 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Gentleman's Magazine of July 31, 1806, appears the 
brief line, " Died in the convent of Barbadinas ? 
of a decline, Mr. Vincent Lunardi, the celebrated 
aeronaut." 

Garnerin, of whom mention has already been made, 
accomplished in the summer of 1802 two aerial voyages 
marked by extreme velocity in the rate of travel. 
The first of these is also remarkable as having been 
the first to fairly cross the heart of London. Captain 
Snowdon, R.N., accompanied the aeronaut. The 
ascent took place from Chelsea Gardens, and proved 
so great an attraction that the crowd overflowed into 
the neighbouring parts of the town, choking up the 
thoroughfares with vehicles, and covering the river 
with boats. On being liberated, the balloon sped 
rapidly away, taking a course midway between the 
river and the main highway of the Strand, Fleet 
Street, and Cheapside, and so passed from view of the 
multitude. Such a departure could hardly fail to 
lead to subsequent adventures, and this is pithily 
told in a letter written by Garnerin himself : "I 
take the earliest opportunity of informing you that 
after a very pleasant journey, but after the most 
dangerous descent I ever made, on account of the 
boisterous weather and the vicinity of the sea, we 
alighted at the distance of four miles from this place 
and sixty from Ranelagh. We were only three- 
quarters of an hour on the way. To-night I intend 
to be in London with the balloon, which is torn to 
pieces. We ourselves are all over bruises." 

Only a week after the same aeronaut ascended 
again from Marylebone, when he attained almost the 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 57 

same velocity, reaching Chingford, a distance of seven- 
teen miles, in fifteen minutes. 

The chief danger attending a balloon journey in 
a high wind, supposing no injury has been sustained 
in filling and launching, results not so much from 
impact with the ground on alighting as from 
the subsequent almost inevitable dragging along 
the ground. The grapnels, spurning the open, will 
often obtain no grip save in a hedge or tree, and even 
then large boughs will be broken through or dragged 
away, releasing the balloon on a fresh career which 
may, for a while, increase in mad impetuosity as the 
emptying silk offers a deeper hollow for the wind 
to catch. 

The element of risk is of another nature in the case 
of a night ascent, when the actual alighting ground 
cannot be duly chosen or foreseen. Among many 
record night ascents may here, somewhat by antici- 
pation of events, be mentioned two embarked upon 
by the hero of our last adventure. M. Garnerin was 
engaged to make a spectacular ascent from Tivoli at 
Paris, leaving the grounds at night with attached 
lamps illuminating his balloon. His first essay was 
on a night of early August, when he ascended at n 
p.m., reaching a height of nearly three miles. Re- 
maining aloft through the hours of darkness, he 
witnessed the sun rise at half-past two in the morn- 
ing, and eventually came to earth after a journey of 
some seven hours, during which time he had covered 
considerably more than a hundred miles. A like bold 
adventure carried out from the same grounds the 
following month was attended with graver peril. A 



58 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

heavy thunderstorm appearing imminent, Garnerin 
elected to ascend with great rapidity, with the result 
that his balloon, under the diminished pressure, 
quickly became distended to an alarming degree, and 
he was reduced to the necessity of piercing a hole in 
the silk, while for safety's sake he endeavoured to 
extinguish all lamps within reach. He now lost all 
control over his balloon, which became unmanageable 
in the conflict of the storm. Having exhausted his 
ballast, he presently was rudely brought to earth and 
then borne against a mountain side, finally losing 
consciousness until the balloon had found anchorage 
three hundred miles away from Paris. 

A night ascent, which reads as yet more sensa- 
tional and extraordinary, is reported to have been 
made a year or two previously, and when it is con- 
sidered that the balloon used was of the Montgolfier 
type the account as it is handed down will be allowed 
to be without parallel. It runs thus : Count Zam- 
beccari, Dr. Grassati of Rome, and M. Pascal Andreoli 
of Antona ascended on a November night from Bologna, 
allowing their balloon to rise with excessive velocity. 
In consequence of this rapid transition to an extreme 
altitude the Count and the Doctor became insensible, 
leaving Andreoli alone in possession of his faculties. 
At two o'clock in the morning they found them- 
selves descending over the Adriatic, at which time a 
lantern which they carried expired and was with 
difficulty re-lighted. Continuing to descend, they 
presently pitchedin to the sea and became drenched 
with salt water. It may seem surprising that the 
balloon, which could not be prevented falling in the 




COUNT ZAMBECCARI S BALLOON. 



From an Engraving in the British Museum. 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 59 

water, is yet enabled to ascend from the grip of 

the waves by the mere discharge of ballast. (It 
would be interesting to inquire what meanwhile 
happened to the fire which they presumably carried 
with them.) They now rose into regions of cloud, 
where they became covered with hoar frost and also 
stone deaf. At 3 a.m. they were off the coast of Istria, 
once more battling with the waves till picked up by 
a shore boat. The balloon, relieved of their weight, 
then flew away into Turkey. 

However overdrawn this narrative may appear, 
it must be read in the light of another account, the 
bare, hard facts of which can admit of no question. 
It is five years later, and once again Count Zambeccari 
is ascending from Bologna, this time in company with 
Signor Bonagna. Again it is a Montgolfier or fire 
balloon, and on nearing earth it becomes entangled 
in a tree and catches fire. The aeronauts jump for 
their lives, and the Count is killed on the spot. Cer- 
tainly, when every allowance is made for pardonable 
or unintentional exaggeration, it must be conceded 
that there were giants in those days. Giants in the 
conception and accomplishment of deeds of lofty 
daring. Men who came scathless through supreme 
danger by virtue Gi the calmness and courage with 
which they withstood it. 

Among other appalling disasters we have an 
example of a terrific descent from a vast height in 
which the adventurers yet escape with their lives. 
It was the summer of 1808, and the aeronauts, MM. 
Andreoli and Brioschi, ascending from Padua, reach 
a height at which a barometer sinks to eight inches, 



6o ITHE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

indicating upwards of 30,000 feet. At this point the 
balloon bursts, and falls precipitately near Petrarch's 
tomb. Commenting on this, Mr. Glaisher, the value 
of whose opinion is second to none, is not disposed 
to question the general truth of the narrative. In 
regard to Zambeccari's escape from the sea related 
above, it should be stated that in the case of a gas- 
inflated balloon which has no more than dipped its 
car or gallery in the waves, it is generally perfectly 
possible to raise it again from the water, provided 
there is on board a store of ballast, the discharge of 
which will sufficiently lighten the balloon. A case in 
point occurred in a most romantic and perilous 
voyage accomplished by Mr. Sadler on the 1st of 
October, 1812. 

His adventure is one of extraordinary interest, 
and of no little value to the practical aeronaut. The 
following account is condsened from Mr. Sadler's 
own narrative. He started from the grounds of Bel- 
vedere House, Dublin, with the expressed intention 
of endeavouring to cross over the Irish Channel to 
Liverpool. There appear to have been two prin- 
cipal air drifts, an upper and a lower, by means of 
which he entertained fair hopes of steering his desired 
course. But from the outset he Was menaced with 
dangers and difficulties. Ere he had left the land he 
discovered a rent in his silk which, occasioned by 
some accident before leaving, showed signs of extend- 
ing. To reach this, it was necessary to extemporise 
by means of a rope a species of ratlins by which he 
could climb the rigging. He then contrived to close 
the rent with his neckcloth. He was, by this time, 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 61 

over the sea, and, manoeuvring his craft by aid of the 
two currents at his disposal, he was carried to the 
south shore of the Isle of Man, whence he was confi- 
dent of being able, had he desired it, of landing in 
Cumberland. This, however, being contrary to his 
intention, he entrusted himself to the higher current, 
and by it was carried to the north-west of Holyhead. 
Here he dropped once again to the lower current, 
drifting south of the Skerry Lighthouse across the Isle 
of Anglesea, and at 4.30 p.m. found himself abreast 
of the Great Orme's Head. Evening now approach- 
ing, he had determined to seek a landing, but at 
this critical juncture the wind shifted to the south- 
ward, and he became blown out to sea. Then, for an 
hour, he appears to have tried high and low for a more 
favourable current, but without success ; and, feeling 
the danger of his situation, and, moreover, sighting no 
less than five vessels beating down the Channel, he 
boldly descended in the sea about a mile astern of 
them. He must for certain have been observed by 
these vessels ; but each and all held on their course, 
and, thus deserted, the aeronaut had no choice but to 
discharge ballast, and, quitting the waves, to regain 
his legitimate element. His experiences at this period 
of his extraordinary voyage are best told in his own 
words. " At the time I descended the sun was near 
setting. Already the shadows of evening had cast 
a dusky hue over the face of the ocean, and a crimson 
glow purpled the tops of the waves as, heaving in 
the evening breeze, they died away in distance, or 
broke in foam against the sides of the vessels, and be- 
fore I rose from the sea the orb had sunk below the 



62 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

horizon, leaving only the twilight glimmer to light 
the vast expanse around me. How great, therefore, 
was my astonishment, and how incapable is expres- 
sion to convey an adequate idea of my feelings when, 
rising to the upper region of the air, the sun, whose 
parting beams I had already witnessed, again burst on 
my view, and encompassed me with the full blaze of 
day. Beneath me hung the shadows of even, whilst 
the clear beams of the sun glittered on the floating 
vehicle which bore me along rapidly before the wind." 

After a while he sights three more vessels, which 
signify their willingness to stand by, whereupon he 
promptly descends, dropping beneath the two rear- 
most of them. From this point the narrative of the 
sinking man, and the gallant attempt at rescue, will 
rival any like tale of the sea. For the wind, now fast 
rising, caught the half empty balloon so soon as the 
car touched the sea, and the vessel astern, though in 
full pursuit, was wholly unable to come up. Observ- 
ing this, Mr. Sadler, trusting more to the vessel ahead, 
dropped his grappling iron by way of drag, and shortly 
afterwards tried the further expedient of taking off 
his clothes and attaching them to the iron. The 
vessels, despite these endeavours, failing to overhaul 
him, he at last, though with reasonable reluctance, 
determined to further cripple the craft that bore him 
so rapidly by liberating a large quantity of gas, a 
desperate, though necessary, expedient which nearly 
cost him his life. 

For the car now instantly sank, and the unfor- 
tunate man, clutching at the hoop, found he could 
not even so keep himself above the water, and was 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 63 

reduced to clinging, as a last hope, to the netting. 
The result of this could be foreseen, for he was fre- 
quently plunged under water by the mere rolling of 
the balloon. Cold and exertion soon told on him, 
as he clung frantically to the valve rope, and when 
his strength failed him he actually risked the ex- 
pedient of passing his head through the meshes of the 
net. It was obvious that for avail help must soon 
come ; yet the pursuing vessel, now close, appeared to 
hold off, fearing to become entangkd in the net, and 
in this desperate extremity, fainting from exhaustion 
and scarcely able to cry aloud, Mr. Sadler himself 
seems to have divined the chance yet left ; for, sum- 
moning his failing strength, he shouted to the sailors 
to run their bowsprit through his balloon. This was 
done, and the drowning man was hauled on board 
with the life scarcely in him. 

A fitting sequel to the above adventure followed 
five years afterwards. The Irish Sea remained un- 
conquered. Xo balloonist had as yet ever crossed 
its waters. Who would attempt the feat once more ? 
Who more worthy than the hero's own son, Mr. Wind- 
ham Sadler ? 

This aspiring aeronaut, emulating his father's en- 
terprising spirit, chose the same starting ground at 
Dublin, and on the longest day of 1817, when winds 
seemed favourable, left the Porto Bello barracks at 
1.20 p.m. His endeavour was to " tack " his con 
by such currents as he should find, in the manner 
attempted by his father, and at starting the ground 
current blew favourably from the W.S.W. He, how- 
ever, allowed his balloon to rise to too high an alti- 



64 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

tude, where he must have been taken aback by a 
contrary drift ; for, on descending again through 
a shower of snow, he found himself no further than 
Ben Howth, as yet only ten miles on his long journey. 
Profiting by his mistake, he thenceforward, by skil- 
ful regulation, kept his balloon within due limits, and 
successfully maintained a direct course across the sea, 
reaching a spot in Wales not far from Holyhead an 
hour and a half before sundown. The course taken 
was absolutely the shortest possible, being little 
more than seventy miles, which he traversed in five 
hours. 

From this period of our story, noteworthy events 
in aeronautical history grow few and far between. 
As a mere exhibition the novelty of a balloon ascent 
had much worn off. No experimentalist was ready 
with any new departure in the art. No fresh ad- 
venture presented itself to the minds of the more 
enterprising spirits ; and, whereas a few years pre- 
viously ballooning exploits crowded into every sum- 
mer season and were not neglected even in winter 
months, there is now for a while little to chronicle, 
either abroad or in our own country. A certain re- 
vival of the sensational element in ballooning was 
occasionally witnessed, and not without mishap, as 
in the case of Madame Blanchard, who, in the summer 
of 1819, ascending at night with fireworks from the 
Tivoli Gardens, Paris, managed to set fire to her balloon 
and lost her life in her terrific fall. Half a dozen years 
later a Mr., as also Mrs., Graham figure before the 
public in some bold spectacular ascents. 

But the fame of any aeronaut of that date must 



SOME FAMOUS EARLY VOYAGERS. 65 

inevitably pale before the dawning light shed b}^ 
two stars of the first magnitude that were arising 
in two opposite parts of the world — Mr. John Wise 
in America, and Mr. Charles Green in our own coun- 
try. The latter of these, who has been well styled 
the " Father of English Aeronautics," now entered 
on a long and honoured career of so great importance 
and success that we must reserve for him a separate 
and special chapter. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 

THE balloon, which had gradually been dropping 
out of favour, had now been virtually laid aside, 
and, to all appearance, might have continued so, 
when, as if by chance concurrence of events, there 
arrived both the hour and the man to restore it to 
the world, and to invest it with a new practicability 
and importance. The coronation of George the Fourth 
was at hand, and this became a befitting occasion 
for the rare genius mentioned at the end of the last 
chapter, and now in his thirty-sixth year, to put 
in practice a new method of balloon management 
and inflation, the entire credit of which must be 
accorded to him alone. 

From its very introduction and inception the gas 
balloon, an expensive and fragile structure in itself, 
had proved at all times exceedingly costly in actual 
use. Indeed, we find that at the date at which we 
have now arrived the estimate for filling a balloon 
of 70,000 cubic feet — no extraordinary capacity — 
with hydrogen gas was about £250. When, then, 
to this great outlay was added the difficulty and 
delay of producing a sufficient supply by what was 
at best a clumsy process, as also the positive failure 
and consequent disappointment which not infre- 
quently ensued, it is easy to understand how through 
many years balloon ascents, no longer a novelty, 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 67 

had begun to be regarded with distrust, and the pro- 
fession of a balloonist was doomed to become un- 
remunerative. A simpler and cheaper mode of in- 
flation was not only a desideratum, but an absolute 
necessity. The full truth of this may be gathered 
from the fact that we find there were not seldom 
instances where two or three days of continuous and 
anxious labour were expended in generating and pass- 
ing hydrogen into a balloon, through the fabric of 
which the subtle gas would escape - almost as fast as 
it was produced. 

It was at this juncture, then, that Charles Green 
conceived the happy idea of substituting for hydro- 
gen gas the ordinary household gas, which at this 
time was to be found ready to hand and in sufficient 
quantity in all towns of any consequence ; and by 
the day of the coronation all was in readiness for a 
public exhibition of this method of inflation, which 
was carried out with complete success, though not 
altogether without unrehearsed and amusing inci- 
dent, as must be told. 

The day, July 18, was one of summer heat, and 
Green at the conclusion of his preparations, fatigued 
with anxious labour and oppressed by the crowding 
of the populace, took refuge within the car of his 
balloon, which was by that time already inflated, 
and only awaiting the gun signal that was to announce 
the moment for its departure. To allow of his gain 
ing the refreshment of somewhat purer air he begged 
his friends who were holding the car of his balloon 
in restraint to keep it suspended at a few feet from 
the earth, while he rested himself within, and, this 



6S THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

being done, it would appear that he fell into a doze, 
from which he did not awake till he found that the 
balloon, which had slipped from his friends' hold, 
was already high above the crowd and requiring his 
prompt attention. This was, however, by no means 
an untoward accident, and Green's triumph was 
complete. By this one venture alone the success of 
the new method was entirely assured. The cost of 
the inflation had been reduced ten-fold, the labour 
and uncertainty a hundred-fold, and, over and above 
all, the confidence of the public was restored. It 
is little wonder, then, that in the years that now follow 
we find the balloon returning to all the favour it had 
enjoyed in its palmiest days. 

But Green proved himself something more than 
a practical balloonist of the first rank. He brought 
to the aid of his profession ideas which were matured 
by due thought and scientifically sound. It is true 
he still clung for a while to the antiquated notion that 
mechanical means could, with advantage, be used 
to cause a balloon to ascend or descend, or to alter 
its direction in a tranquil atmosphere. But he saw 
clearly that the true method of navigating a balloon 
should be by a study of upper currents, and this he 
was able to put to practical proof on a memorable 
occasion, and in a striking manner, as we shall pre- 
sently relate. 

He learned the lesson early in his career while 
acquiring facts and experience, unassisted, in a number 
of solitary voyages made from different parts of the 
country. Among these he is careful to record an 
occasion when, making a day-light ascent from Boston, 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON' 69 

Lincolnshire, he maintained a lofty course, which 
promised to take him direct to Grantham ; but, pre- 
sently descending to a lower level, and his balloon 
diverging at an angle of some 45 degrees, he now 
headed for Newark. This experience he stored away. 

A month later we find him making a night voyage 
from Vauxhall Gardens, destined to be the scene of 
many memorable ascents in the near future ; and on 
this occasion he gave proof of his capability as a 
close and intelligent observer. It -was a July night, 
near n p.m., moonless and cloudy, yet the earth 
was visible, and under these circumstances his simple 
narrative becomes of scientific value. He accurately 
distinguished the reflective properties of the face of 
the diversified country he traversed. Over Batter- 
sea and Wandsworth — this was in 1826 — there were 
white sheets spread over the land, which proved to 
be corn crops ready for the sickle. Where crops were 
not the ground was darker, with, here and there, 
objects absolutely black — in other words, trees and 
houses. Then he mentions the river in a memoran- 
dum, which reads strangely to the aeronaut who has 
made the same night voyage in these latter days. 
The stream was crossed in places with rows of lamps 
apparently resting on the water. These were the 
lighted bridges ; but, here and there, were dark 
planks, and these too were bridges — at Battersea and 
Putney — but without a light upon them ! 

In these and many other simple, but graphic, 
narratives Green draws his ow T n pictures of Nature 
in her quieter moods. But he was not without early 
experience of her horse play, a highly instructive 



70 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

record of which should not be omitted here, and which, 
as coming from so careful and conscientious an ob- 
server, is best gathered from his own words. The 
ascent was from Newbury, and it can have been no 
mean feat to fill, under ordinary circumstances, a 
balloon carrying two passengers and a considerable 
weight of ballast at the small gas-holder which served 
the town eighty-five years ago. But the circum- 
stances were not ordinary, for the wind was extremely 
squally ; a tremendous hail and thunderstorm blew 
up, and a hurricane swept the balloon with such force 
that two tons weight of iron and a hundred men 
scarce sufficed to hold it in check. 

Green on this occasion had indeed a companion, 
whose usefulness however at a pinch may be doubted 
when we learn that he was both deaf and dumb. 
The rest of the narrative runs thus : " Between 4 
and 5 p.m. the clouds dispersed, but the wind con- 
tinued to rage with unabated fury the whole of the 
evening. At 6 p.m. I stepped into the car with Mr. 
Simmons and gave the word ' Away ! ' The moment 
the machine was disencumbered of its weights it 
was torn by the violence of the wind from the assist- 
ants, bounded off with the velocity of lightning in 
a south-easterly direction, and in a very short space 
of time attained an elevation of two miles. At this 
altitude we perceived two immense bodies of clouds 
operated on by contrary currents of air until at 
length they became united, and at that moment my 
ears were assailed by the most awful and longest 
continued peal of thunder I have ever heard. These 
clouds were a full mile beneath us, but - perceiving 





Photos by the Author. 



ABOVE THE SUMMER CLOUDS. 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 71 

other strata floating at the same elevation at which 
we were sailing, which from their appearance I judged 
to be highly charged with electricity, I considered 
it prudent to discharge twenty pounds of ballast, and 
we rose half a mile above our former elevation, where 
I considered we were perfectly safe and beyond their 
influence. I observed, amongst other phenomena, 
that at every discharge of thunder all the detached 
pillars of clouds within the distance of a mile around 
became attracted and appeared to . concentrate their 
force towards the first body of clouds alluded to, 
leaving the atmosphere clear and calm beneath and 
around us. 

'With very trifling variations we continued the 
same course until 7.15 p.m., when we descended to 
within 500 feet of the earth ; but, perceiving from 
the disturbed surface of the rivers and lakes that a 
strong wind existed near the earth, we again ascended 
and continued our course till 7.30 p.m., when a final 
descent was safely effected in a meadow field in the 
parish of Crawley in Surrey, situated between Guild- 
ford and Horsham, and fifty-eight miles from New- 
bury. This stormy voyage was performed in one 
hour and a half." 

It was after Green had followed his profession 
for fifteen years that he was called upon to under- 
take the management of an aerial venture, which, all 
things considered, has never been surpassed in genuine 
enterprise and daring. The conception of the pro- 
ject was due to Mr. Robert Hollond, and it took 
shape in this way. This gentleman, fresh from Cam- 
bridge, possessed of all the ardour of early manhood, 



72 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

as also of adequate means, had begun to devote him- 
self with the true zeal of the enthusiast to the 
pursuit of ballooning, finding due opportunity for this 
in his friendship with Mr. Green, who enjoyed the 
management of the fine balloon made for ascents at 
the then popular Vauxhall Gardens. 

In the autumn of 1836 the proprietors of this 
balloon, contemplating making an exhibition of an 
ascent from Paris, and requiring their somewhat 
fragile property to be conveyed to that city, Mr. 
Hollond boldly came forward and offered to transfer 
it thither, and, as nearly as this might be possible, 
by passage through the sky. The proposal was ac- 
cepted, and Mr. Holland, in conjunction with Green, 
set about the needful preparations. These, as will 
appear, were on an extraordinary scale, and no blame 
is to be imputed on that account, as a little considera- 
tion will show. For the venture proposed was not 
to be that of merely crossing the Channel, which, as 
we have seen, had been successfully effected no less 
than fifty years before. The voyage in contempla- 
tion was to be from London; it was, moreover, to 
be pursued through a long, moonless winter's night, 
and under conditions of which no living aeronaut had 
had actual experience. Calculation, based on a suf- 
ficient knowledge of fast upper currents, told that 
their course, ere finished, might be one of almost 
indefinite length, and it is not too much to say that 
no one, with the knowledge of that day, could predict 
within a thousand miles where the dawn of the next 
day might find them. 

The equipment, therefore, was commensurate with 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 73 

the possible task before them. To begin with, they 
limited their number to three in all — Mr. Hollond, as 
chief and keeper of the log ; Mr. Green, as aeronaut ; 
and an enthusiastic colleague, Mr. Monck Mason, as 
the chronicler of the party. Next, they provided 
themselves with passports to all parts of the Con- 
tinent ; and then came the fitting out and victualling 
of the aerial craft itself, calculated to carry some 
90,000 cubic feet of gas, and a counterpoise of a ton 
of ballast, which took the form partly of actual pro- 
visions in large quantity, partly of gear and apparatus, 
and for the rest of sand and also lime, of which more 
anon. Across the middle of the car was fixed a bench 
to serve as table, and also as a stage for the winding 
in and out of an enormous trail rope a thousand feet 
long, designed by Mr. Green to meet the special emer- 
gencies of the voyage. At the bottom of the car 
was spread a large cushion to serve the purposes of 
rest. 

When all was in readiness unfitness of weather 
baulked the travellers for some days, but Monday, 
the 7th of November, was judged a favourable day, 
so that the inflation was rapidly proceeded with, and 
at 1.30 p.m. the " Monstre Balloon," as it was entitled 
in the " Ingoldsby Legends," left the earth on her 
eventful and ever memorable voyage. The weather 
was fine and promising, and, rising with a moderate 
breeze from the N.W., they began to traverse the 
northern parts of Kent, while light, drifting upper 
clouds gave indication of other possible currents. Mr. 
Hollond was precise in the determination of times 
and of all readings, and we learn that at exactly 2.48 



74 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

p.m. they were crossing the Medway, six miles west 
of Rochester, while at 4.5 p.m. the lofty towers of 
Canterbury were well in view, two miles to the east, 
and here a little function was well carried out. Green 
had twice ascended from this city under patronage 
of the authorities, and the idea occurred to the party 
that it would be a graceful compliment to drop a 
message to the Mayor as they passed. A suitable 
note, therefore, quickly written, was dismissed in a 
parachute, and it may be mentioned that this, as also 
a similar missive addressed later to the Mayor of 
Dover, were duly received and acknowledged. 

At a quarter past four they sighted the sea, and 
here, the air beginning to grow chill, the balloon 
dropped earthward, and for some miles they skimmed 
the ground, disturbing the partridges, scattering the 
rooks, and keeping up a running conversation the 
while with labourers and passers below. In this 
there was exercise of perfectly proper aerial seaman- 
ship, such as moreover presently led to an exhibition 
of true science. To save ballast is, with a balloon, 
to prolong life, and this may often best be done by 
flying low, which doubtless was Green's present in- 
tention. But soon his trained eye saw that the ground 
current which now carried them was leading them 
astray. They were trending to the northward, and 
so far out of their course that they would soon make 
the North Foreland, and so be carried out over the 
North Sea far from their desired direction. Thereupon 
Green attempted to put in practice his theory, al- 
ready spoken of, of steering by upper currents, and 
the event proved his judgment peculiarly correct. 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 75 

" Nothing," wrote Mr. Monck Mason, " could exceed 
the beauty of the manoeuvre, to which the balloon 
at once responded, regaining her due course, and, in 
a matter of a few minutes only, bearing the voyagers 
almost vertically over the castle of Dover in the exact 
line for crossing the straits between that town and 
Calais." 

So far all was well, and success had been extra- 
ordinary ; but from this moment they became faced 
with new conditions, and with the -grave trouble of 
uncertainty. Light was failing, the sea was before 
them, and — what else thenceforth ? 4.48 p.m. was 
recorded as the moment when the first line of break- 
ing waves was seen directly below them, and then the 
English coast line began rapidly to fade out from 
their view. But, ahead, the obscurity w 7 as yet more 
intense, for clouds, banked up like a solid wall, crowned 
along its frowning heights, with " parapets and tur- 
rets and batteries and bastions," and, plunging into 
this opposing barrier, they were quickly buried in 
blackness, losing at the same time over the sea all 
sound from earth soever. So for a short hour's space, 
when the sound of waves once again broke in upon 
them, and immediately afterwards emerging from 
the dense cloud (a sea-fog merely) they found them- 
selves immediately over the brilliantly lighted town 
of Calais. Seeing this, the travellers attempted to 
signal by igniting and lowering a Bengal Light, which 
was directly followed by the beating of drums from 
below. 

It adds a touch of reality, as well as cheerfulness, 
to the narrative to read that at this period of their 



y6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

long journey the travellers apply themselves to a fair, 
square meal, the first for twelve hours, despite the 
day's excitement and toil. We have an entry among 
the stores of the balloon of wine bottles and spirit 
flasks, but there is no mention of these being re- 
quisitioned at this period. The demand seems rather 
to have been for coffee — coffee hot ; and this by a 
novel device was soon prepared. It goes without 
saying that a fire or flame of any kind, except with 
special precautions, is inadmissable in a balloon ; 
but a cooking heat, sufficient for the present purpose, 
was supplied from the store of lime, a portion of 
which, being placed in a suitably contrived vessel 
and slaked quickly, procured the desired beverage. 

This meal now indulged in seems to have been 
heartily and happily enjoyed ; and from this point, for 
a while, the narrative becomes that of enthusiastic and 
delighted travellers. In the gloom below, for leagues 
around, they regarded the scattered fires of a watch- 
ful population, with here and there the lights of larger 
towns, and the contemplation begot romantic reveries. 
" Were they not amid the vast solitudes of the skies, 
in the dead of night, unknown and unnoticed, secretly 
and silently reviewing kingdoms, exploring terri- 
tories, and surveying cities, all clothed in the dark 
mantle of mystery ? " Presently they identified the 
blazing city of Liege, with the lurid lights of exten- 
sive outlying iron works, and this was the last visible 
sign they caught of earth that night ; save, at least, 
when occasional glimpses of lightning momentarily 
and dimly outlined the world in the abyss below. 

Ere long, they met with their first discomfort, 



CHARLES GREEN AND THE NASSAU BALLOON. 77 

which they seem to have regarded as a most serious 
one, namely, the accidental dropping overboard 
of their cherished coffee-boiling apparatus. With 
its loss their store of lime became useless, save 
as ballast, and for this it was forthwith utilised until 
nothing remained but the empty lime barrel itself, 
which, being regarded as an objectionable encum- 
brance, it was desirable to get rid of, were it not for 
the risk involved in rudely dropping it to earth. But 
the difficulty was met. They possessed a suitable 
small parachute, and, attached to this, the barrel was 
allowed to float earthward. 

As hours advanced, the blackness of night in- 
creased, and their impressions appear somewhat 
strange to anyone familiar with ordinary night travel 
in the sky. Mr. Monck Mason compares their pro- 
gress through the darkness to " cleaving their way 
through an interminable mass of black marble. 5 ' 
Then, presently, an unaccountable object puzzles 
and absorbs the attention of all the party for a long 
period. They were gazing open-mouthed at a long 
narrow avenue of feeble light, which, though appar- 
ently belonging to earth, was too long and regular 
for a river, and too broad for a canal or road, and it 
was only after many futile imaginings that they dis- 
covered they were simply looking at a stay rope of the 
balloon hanging far out over the side. 

Somewhat later still, there was a more serious 
claim upon the imagination. It was half-past three 
in the morning, and the balloon, which, to escape 
from too low an altitude, had been liberally lightened, 
had now at high speed mounted to a vast height. 



7 8 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

And then, amid the black darkness and dead silence 
of that appalling region, suddenly overhead came the 
sound of an explosion, followed by the violent rustling 
of the silk, while the car jerked violently, as though 
suddenly detached from its hold. This was the idea, 
leading to the belief that the balloon had suddenly 
exploded, and that they were falling headlong to 
earth. Their suspense, however, cannot have been 
long, and the incident was intelligible enough, being 
due to the sudden yielding of stiffened net and silk 
under rapid expansion caused by their speedy and 
lofty ascent. 

The chief incidents of the night were now over, 
until the dawn arrived and began to reveal a strange 
land, with large tracts of snow, giving place, as the 
light strengthened, to vast forests. To their minds 
these suggested the plains of Poland, if not the steppes 
of Russia, and, fearing that the country further for- 
ward might prove more inhospitable, they decided 
to come to earth as speedily as possible. This, in 
spite of difficult landing, they effected about the hour 
that the waking population were moving abroad, and 
then, and not till then, they learned the land of their 
haven — the heart of the German forests. Five hun- 
dred miles had been covered in eighteen hours from 
start to finish ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. 

ALL history is liable to repeat itself, and that of 
l aeronautics forms no exception to the rule. The 
second year after the invention of the balloon the 
famous M. Blanchard, ascending from Frankfort, 
landed near Weilburg, and, in commemoration of the 
event, the flag he bore was deposited among the ar- 
chives in the ducal palace of that town. Fifty-one 
years passed by when, outside the same city, a yet 
more famous balloon effected its landing, and with due 
ceremony its flag is presently laid beside that of 
Blanchard in the same ducal palace. The balloon 
of the " Immortal Three," whose splendid voyage 
has just been recounted, will ever be known by the 
title of the Great Nassau Balloon, but the neighbour- 
hood of its landing was that of the town of Weilburg, 
in the Duchy of Nassau, whither the party betook 
themselves, and where, during many days, they were 
entertained with extravagant hospitality and honour 
until business recalled Mr. Hollond home. 

Green had now made upwards of two hundred 
ascents, and, though he lived to make a thousand, 
it was impossible that he could ever eclipse this last 
record. It is true that the same Nassau balloon, 
under his guidance, made many other most memor- 
able voyages, some of which it will be necessary to 



80 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

dwell on. But, to preserve a better chronology, we 
must first, without further digression, approach an 
event which fills a dark page in our annals ; and, in 
so doing, we have to transfer our attention from the 
balloon itself to its accessory, the parachute. 

Twenty-three years before our present date, that 
is to say in 1814, Mr. Cocking delivered his views as 
to the proper form of the parachute before the Society 
of Arts, who, as a mark of approval, awarded him a 
medal. This parachute, however, having never taken 
practical shape, and only existing, figuratively speak- 
ing, in the clouds, seemed unlikely to find its way 
there in reality until the success of the Nassau ad- 
venture stirred its inventor to strenuous efforts to 
give it an actual trial. Thus it came about that he 
obtained Mr. Green's co-operation in the attempt he 
now undertook, and, though this ended disastrously, 
for Mr. Cocking, the great professional aeronaut can 
in no way soever be blamed for the tragic event. 

The date of the trial was in July, 1837. 
Mr. Cooking's parachute was totally different in prin- 
ciple from that form which, as we have seen, had met 
with a fair measure of success at the hands of early 
experimenters ; and on the eve of its trial it was 
strongly denounced and condemned in the London 
Press by the critic whom we have recently so freely 
quoted, Mr. Monck Mason. 

This able reasoner and aeronaut pointed out that 
the contrivance about to be tested aimed at obviating 
two principal drawbacks which the parachute had up 
to that time presented, namely (1) the length of time 
which elapses before it becomes sufficiently expanded, 




COOKING'S PARACHUTE ASCENT 



From an Engraving in the British Museutr 



CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. 81 

and (2) the oscillatory movement which accompanies 
the descent. In this new endeavour the inventor 
caused his machine to be fixed rigidly open, and to 
assume the shape of an inverted cone. In other words, 
instead of its being like an umbrella opened, it rather 
resembled an umbrella blown inside out. Taking, 
then, the shape and dimensions of Mr. Cocking's struc- 
ture as a basis for mathematical calculation, as also 
its weight, which for required strength he put at 500 
lbs., Mr. Monck Mason estimated that the adventurer 
and his machine must attain in falling a velocity of 
some twelve miles an hour. In fact, his positive 
prediction was that one of two events must inevitably 
take place. " Either the parachute would come to 
the ground with a force incompatible with the safety 
of the individual, or should it be attempted to make 
it sufficiently light to resist this conclusion, it must 
give way beneath the forces which will develop in 
the descent." 

This emphatic word of warning was neglected, and 
the result of the terrible experiment can best be 
gathered from two principal sources. First, that of 
a special reporter writing from terra-firma, and, 
secondly, that of Mr. Green himself, who gives his own 
observations as made from the balloon in which he 
took the unfortunate man and his invention into the 
sky. 

The journalist, who first speaks of the enormous 
concourse that gathered to see the ascent, not only 
within Vauxhall Gardens, but on every vantage ground 
without, proceeds to tell of his interview with Mr. 
Cocking himself, who, when questioned as to the 
G 



82 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

danger involved, remarked that none existed for him, 
and that the greatest peril, if any, would attend the 
balloon when suddenly relieved of his weight. The 
proprietors of the Gardens, as the hour approached, 
did their best to dissuade the over-confident inventor, 
offering, themselves, to take the consequences of any 
public disappointment. This was again without avail, 
and so, towards 6 p.m., Mr. Green, accompanied by 
Mr. Spencer, a solicitor of whom this history will have 
more to tell, entered the balloon, which was then let 
up about 40 feet that the parachute might be affixed 
below. A little later, Mr. Cocking, casting aside his 
heavy coat and tossing off a glass of wine, entered 
his car and, amid deafening acclamations, with the 
band playing the National Anthem, the balloon and 
aeronauts above, and he himself in his parachute 
swinging below, mounted into the heavens, passing 
presently, in the gathering dusk, out of view of the 
Gardens. 

The sequel should be gathered from Mr. Green's 
own narrative. Previous to starting, 650 lbs. of 
ballast had to be discarded to gain buoyancy suffi- 
cient to raise the massive machine. This, together 
with another 100 lbs., which was also required to 
be ejected owing to the cooling of the air, was passed 
out through a canvas tube leading downwards through 
a hole in the parachute, an ingenious contrivance 
which would prevent the sand thrown out from the 
balloon falling on the slender structure itself. On 
quitting the earth, however, this latter set up such 
violent oscillations that the canvas tube was torn 
away, and then it became the troublesome task of 



CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. 83 

the aeronauts to make up their ballast into little 
parcels, and, as occasion required, to throw these 
into space clear of the swinging parachute below. 

Despite all efforts, however, it was soon evident 
that the cumbersome nature of the huge parachute 
would prevent its being carried up quite so high as 
the inventor desired. Mr. Cocking had stipulated 
for an elevation of 7,000 feet, and, as things were, 
only 5,000 feet could be reached, at any rate, before 
darkness set in. This fact was comnlunicated to Mr. 
Cocking, who promptly intimated his intention of 
leaving, only requesting to know whereabouts he was, 
to which query Mr. Spencer replied that they were on 
a level with Greenwich. The brief colloquy that en- 
sued is thus given by Mr. Green :— 

" I asked him if he felt quite comfortable, and 
if the practical trial bore out his calculation. Mr. 
Cocking replied, c Yes, I never felt more comfort- 
able or more delighted in my life,' presently adding, 
' Well, now I think I shall leave you.' I answered, 
' I wish you a very " Good Night ! " and a safe descent 
if you are determined to make it and not use the 
tackle ' (a contrivance for enabling him to retreat 
up into the balloon if he desired). Mr. Cooking's 
only reply was, ' Good-night, Spencer ; Good-night, 
Green ! ' Mr. Cocking then pulled the rope that was 
to liberate himself, but too feebly, and a moment 
afterwards more violently, and in an instant the 
balloon shot upwards with the velocity of a sky rocket. 
The effect upon us at this moment was almost beyond 
description. The immense machine which suspended 
us between heaven and earth, whilst it appeared to 



84 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

be forced upwards with terrific violence and rapidity- 
through unknown and untravelled regions amidst 
the howlings of a fearful hurricane, rolled about as 
though revelling in a freedom for which it had long 
struggled, but of which until that moment it had been 
kept in utter ignorance. It, at length, as if somewhat 
fatigued by its exertions, gradually assumed the mo- 
tions of a snake working its way with extraordinary 
speed towards a given object. During this frightful 
operation the gas was rushing in torrents from the 
upper and lower valve, but more particularly from 
the latter, as the density of the atmosphere through 
which we were forcing our progress pressed so heavily 
on the valve at the top of the balloon as to admit of 
but a comparatively small escape by this aperture. 
At this juncture, had it not been for the application 
to our mouths of two pipes leading into an air bag, 
with which we had furnished ourselves previous to 
starting, we must within a minute have been suf- 
focated, and so, but by different means, have shared 
the melancholy fate of our friend. This bag was 
formed of silk, sufficiently capacious to contain ioo 
gallons of atmospheric air. Prior to our ascent, the 
bag was inflated with the assistance of a pair of bel- 
lows with fifty gallons of air, so allowing for any 
expansion which might be produced in the upper 
regions. Into the end of this bag were introduced 
two flexible tubes, and the moment we felt ourselves 
to be going up in the manner just described, Mr. 
Spencer, as well as myself, placed either of them in 
our mouths. By this simple contrivance we pre- 
served ourselves from instantaneous suffocation, a 



CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. 85 

result which must have ensued from the apparently 
endless volume of gas with which the car was en- 
veloped. The gas, notwithstanding all our precau- 
tions, from the violence of its operation on the human 
frame, almost immediately deprived us of sight, and 
we were both, as far as our visionary powers were con- 
cerned, in a state of total darkness for four or five 
minutes." 

Messrs. Green and Spencer eventually reached earth 
in safety near Maidstone, knowing nothing of the fate 
of their late companion. But of this we are suffi- 
ciently informed through a Mr. R. Underwood, who 
was on horseback near Blackheath and watching the 
aeronauts at the moment when the parachute was 
separated from the balloon. He noticed that the 
former descended with the utmost rapidity, at the 
same time swaying fearfully from side to side, 
until the basket and its occupant, actually part- 
ing from the parachute, fell together to earth 
through several hundred feet and were dashed 
to pieces. 

It would appear that the liberation of the para- 
chute from below the balloon had been carried out 
without hitch; indeed, all so far had worked well, 
and the wind at the time was but a gentle breeze. 
The misadventure, therefore, must be entirely attri- 
buted to the faulty manner in which the parachute 
was constructed. There could, of course, be only 
one issue to the sheer drop from such a height, 
which became the unfortunate Mr. Cooking's fate, 
but the very interesting question will have to 
be discussed as to the chances in favour of the 



S6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

aeronaut who, within his wicker car, while still 
duly attached to the balloon, may meet with a 
precipitate descent. 

We may here fitly mention an early perilous ex- 
perience of Mr. Green, due simply to the malice of 
someone never discovered. It appears that while 
Green's balloon, previous to an ascent, was on the 
ground, the cords attaching the car had been partly 
severed in such a way as to escape detection. So 
that as soon as the balloon rose the , car commenced 
breaking away, and its occupants, Mr. Green and Mr. 
Griffiths, had to clutch at the ring, to which with 
difficulty they continued to cling. Meanwhile, the 
car remaining suspended by one cord only, the balloon 
was caused to hang awry, with the result that its 
upper netting began giving way, allowing the balloon 
proper gradually to escape through the bursting 
meshes, thus threatening the distracted voyagers 
with terrible disaster. The disaster, in fact, actually 
came to pass ere the party completed their descent, 
" the balloon, rushing through the opening in the 
net-work with a tremendous explosion, and the two 
passengers clinging to the rest of the gear, falling 
through a height said to be near a hundred feet. 
Both, though only with much time and difficulty, re- 
covered from the shock." 

In 1840, three years after the tragic adventure 
connected with Mr. Cooking's parachute trial, we find 
Charles Green giving his views as to the practica- 
bility of carrying out a ballooning enterprise which 
should far excel all others that had hitherto been 
attempted. This was nothing less than the crossing 



CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. Sy 

of the Atlantic from America to England. There is 
no shadow of doubt that the adventurous aeronaut 
was wholly in earnest in the readiness he expressed 
to embark on the undertaking should adequate funds 
be forthcoming ; and he discusses the possibilities 
with singular clearness and candour. He maintains 
that the actual difficulties resolve themselves into two 
only : first, the maintenance of the balloon in the 
sky for the requisite period of time ; and, secondly, 
the adequate control of its direction in space. With 
respect to the first difficulty, he points out the fact 
to which we have already referred, namely, that it 
is impossible to avoid the fluctuations of level in a 
balloon's course, " by which it constantly becomes 
alternately subjected to escape of gas by expansion, 
and consequent loss of ballast, to furnish an equiva- 
lent diminution of weight. 5 ' Taking his own balloon 
of 80,000 cubic feet by way of example, he shows 
that this, fully inflated on the earth, would lose 8,000 
cubic feet of gas by expansion in ascending only 3,000 
feet. Moreover, the approach of night or passage 
through cloud or falling rain would occasion chilling 
of the gas or accumulation of moisture on the silk, 
in either case necessitating the loss of ballast, the 
store of which is always the true measure of the 
balloon's life. 

To combat the above difficulty Green sanguinely 
relies on his favourite device of a trail or guide rope, 
whose function, being that of relieving the balloon 
of a material weight as it approaches the earth, could, 
he supposed, be made to act yet more efficiently 
when over the sea in the following manner. Its length, 



88 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

suspended from the ring, being not less than 2,000 
feet, it should have attached at its lower end at cer- 
tain intervals a number of small, stout waterproof 
canvas bags, the apertures of which should be contrived 
to admit water, but to oppose its return. Between 
these bags were to be conical floats, to support any 
length of the rope that might descend on the sea. 
Now, should the balloon commence descending, it 
would simply deposit a certain portion of rope on the 
water until it regained equilibrium at no great de- 
crease of altitude, and would thus continue its course 
until alteration of conditions should cause it to re- 
commence rising, when the weight of water now col- 
lected in the bags would play its part in preventing 
the balloon from soaring up into space. With such 
a contrivance Green allowed himself to imagine that 
he could keep a properly made balloon at practically 
the same altitude for a period of three months if 
required. 

The difficulty of maintaining a due course was 
next discussed, and somewhat speedily disposed of. 
Here Green relied on the results of his own observa- 
tion, gathered during 275 ascents, and stated his con- 
viction that there prevails a uniformity of upper 
wind currents that would enable him to carry out his 
bold projects successfully. His contention is best 
given in his own words : — 

" Under whatever circumstances," he says, " I 
made my ascent, however contrary the direction 
of the winds below, I uniformly found that at a cer- 
tain elevation, varying occasionally, but always 
within 10,000 feet of the earth, a current from the 



CHARLES GREEN— FURTHER ADVENTURES. 89 

west, or rather from the north of west, invariably 
prevailed, nor do I recollect a single instance in which 
a different result ensued." Green's complete scheme 
is now sufficiently evident. He was to cross the 
Atlantic practically by the sole assistance of upper 
currents and his guide rcpe, but on this latter ex- 
pedient, should adverse conditions prevail, he yet 
further relied, for he conceived that the rope could 
have attached to its floating end a water drag, which 
would hold the balloon in check until favouring gales 
returned. 

Funds, apparently, were not forthcoming to allow 
of Mr. Green's putting his bold method to the test ; 
but we find him still adhering with so much zeal 
to his project that, five years later, he made, though 
again unsuccessfully, a second proposal to cross the 
Atlantic by balloon. He still continued to make 
many and most enterprising ascents, and one of a 
specially sensational nature must be briefly men- 
tioned before we pass on to regard the exploits of 
other aeronauts. 

It was in 1841, on the occasion of a fete at Cre- 
morne House, when Mr. Green, using his famous Nassau 
balloon, ascended with a Mr. Macdonnell. The wind 
was blowing with such extreme violence that Rain- 
ham, in Essex, about twenty miles distant, was reached 
in little more than a quarter of an hour, and here, 
on nearing the earth, the grapnel, finding good hold, 
gave a wrench to the balloon that broke the ring 
and jerked the car completely upside down, the 
aeronauts only escaping precipitation by holding 
hard to the ropes. A terrific steeplechase ensued, 



90 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

in which the travellers were dragged through stout 
fencing and other obstacles till the balloon, fairly 
emptied of gas, finally came to rest, but not until 
some severe injuries had been received. 



CHAPTER VIII, 

- JOHN WISE — THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 

BY this period the domination of the air was being 
pursued in a fresh part of the world. England 
and her Continental neighbours had vied with each 
in adding to the roll of conquests, and it could hardly 
other be supposed that America would stand by with- 
out taking part in the campaign which was now being 
revived with so much fresh energy in the skies. 

The American champion who stepped forward 
was Mr. John Wise, of Lancaster, Pa., whose 
career, commencing in the year 1835, we must 
now for a while follow. Few attempts at ballooning 
of any kind had up to that time been made in all 
America. There is a record that in December, 1783, 
Messrs. Rittenhouse and Hopkins, Members of the 
Philosophical Academy of Philadelphia, instituted 
experiments with an aerial machine consisting of a 
cage to which forty-seven small balloons were har- 
nessed. In this strange craft a carpenter, by name 
Wilcox, was induced to ascend, which, it is said, he 
did successfully, remaining in the air for ten minutes, 
when, finding himself near a river, he sought to come 
to earth again by opening several of his balloons. 
This brought about an awkward descent, attended, 
however, by no more serious accident than a dislo- 
cated wrist. Mr. Wise, on the other hand, states 



92 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

that JBlanchard had won the distinction of making the 
first ascent in the New World in 1793 in Philadelphia, 
on which occasion Washington was a spectator ; and 
a few years afterwards other Frenchmen gave ex- 
hibitions, which, however, led to no real development 
of the new art on this, the further side of the Atlantic. 
Thus the endeavours we are about to describe were 
those of an independent and, at the same time, highly 
practical experimentalist, and on this account have 
a special value of their own. 

The records that Wise has left of his investiga- 
tions begin at the earliest stage, and possess the charm 
of an obvious and somewhat quaint reality. They 
commence with certain crude calculations which 
would seem to place no limit to the capabilities of 
a balloon. Thus, he points out that one of " the very 
moderate size of 400 feet diameter " would convey 
13,000 men. " No wonder, then," he continues, 
" the citizens of London became alarmed during the 
French War, when they mistook the appearance of a 
vast flock of birds coming towards the Metropolis for 
Napoleon's army apparently coming down upon 
them with this new contrivance." 

Proceeding to practical measures, Wise's first care 
was to procure some proper material of which to 
build an experimental balloon of sufficient size to 
lift and convey himself alone. For this he chose 
ordinary long-cloth, rendered gas-tight by coats of 
suitable varnish, the preparation of which became 
with him, as, indeed, it remains to this day, a problem 
of chief importance and difficulty. Perhaps it hardly 
needs pointing out that the varnish of a balloon 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 93 

must not only be sufficiently elastic not to crack or 
scale off with folding or unavoidable rough usage, 
but it must also be of a nature to resist the common 
tendency of such substances to become adherent or 
" tacky." Wise determined on bird lime thinned with 
linseed oil and ordinary driers. With this prepara- 
tion he coated his material several times both before 
and after the making up, and having procured a net, 
of which he speaks with pride, and a primitive sort 
of car, of which he bitterly complains, he thought 
himself sufficiently equipped to embark on an actual 
ascent, which he found a task of much greater prac- 
tical difficulty than the mere manufacture of his 
air ship. For the inflation by hydrogen of so small 
a balloon as his was he made more than ample pro- 
vision in procuring no less than fifteen casks of 130 
gallons capacity each. He also duly secured a suit- 
able filling ground at the corner of Ninth and Green 
Streets, Philadelphia, but he made a miscalculation 
as to the time the inflation would demand, and this 
led to unforeseen complications, for as yet he knew 
not the way of a crowd which comes to witness a 
balloon ascent. 

Having all things in readiness, and prudently 
waiting for fair weather, he embarked on his grand 
experiment on the 2nd of May, 1835, announcing 4 p.m. 
as the hour of departure. But by that time the 
inflation, having only proceeded for three hours, the 
balloon was but half full, and then the populace be- 
gan to behave as in such circumstances they always 
will. They were incredulous, and presently grew 
troublesome. In vain the harnessing of the car was 



94 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

proceeded with as though all were well. For all was 
not well, and when the aeronaut stepped into his car 
with only fifteen pounds of sand and a few instruments 
he must have done so with much misgiving. Still, 
he had friends around who might have been useful 
had they been less eager to help. But these simply 
crowded round him, giving him no elbow room, nor 
opportunity for trying the " lift " of his all-too-empty 
globe. Moreover, some would endeavour to throw 
the machine upward, while others as strenuously 
strove to keep it down, and at last the former party 
prevailed, and the balloon, being fairly cast into the 
air, grazed a neighbouring chimney and then plunged 
into an adjacent plot, not, however, before the dis- 
tracted traveller had flung away all his little stock 
of sand. There now was brief opportunity for free 
action, and to the first bystander who came running 
up Wise gave the task of holding the car in check. 
To the next he handed out his instruments, his coat, 
and also his boots, hoping thus to get away ; but his 
chance had not yet come, for once again the crowd 
swarmed round him, keeping him prisoner with good- 
natured but mistaken interference, and drowning his 
voice with excited shouting. Somehow, by word and 
gesture, he gave his persecutors to understand that 
he wished to speak, and then he begged them only to 
give him a chance, whereupon the crowd fell back, 
forming a ring, and leaving only one man holding the 
car. It was a moment of suspense, for Wise cal- 
culated that he had only parted with some eighteen 
pounds since his first ineffectual start from the filling 
ground ; but it was enough, and in another moment 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 95 

he was sailing up clear above the crowd. So great, 
as has been already shewn, is often the effect of part- 
ing with the last few pounds of dead weight in a well- 
balanced balloon. 

Such was the first " send off " of the future great 
balloonist, destined to become the pioneer in aero- 
nautics on the far side of the Atlantic. The balloon 
ascended to upwards of a mile, floating gradually 
away, but at its highest point it reached a conflict 
of currents, causing eddies from which Wise escaped 
by a slight decrease of weight, effected by merely 
cutting away the wreaths of flowers that were tied 
about his car. A further small substitute for ballast 
he extemporised in the metal tube inserted in the 
neck of his fabric, and this he cast out when over 
the breadth of the Delaware, and he describes it as 
falling with a rustling sound, and striking the water 
with a splash plainly heard at more than a mile in 
the . sky. After an hour and a quarter the balloon 
spontaneously and steadily settled to earth. 

An ascent carried out later in the same summer 
led to a mishap, which taught the young aeronaut 
an all-important lesson. Using the same balloon 
and the same mode of inflation, he got safely and 
satisfactorily away from his station in the town of 
Lebanon, Pa., and soon found himself over a toll 
gate in the open country, where the gate keeper in 
banter called up to him for his due. To this sum- 
mons Wise, with heedless alacrity, responded in a 
manner which might w T ell have cost him dear. He 
threw out a bag of sand to represent his toll, and, 
though he estimated this at only six pounds, it so 



96 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

greatly accelerated his ascent that he shortly found 
himself at a greater altitude than he ever after at- 
tained. He passed through mist into upper sunshine, 
where he experienced extreme cold and ear-ache, at 
which time, seeking the natural escape from such 
trouble, he found to his dismay that the valve rope 
was out of reach. Thus he was compelled to allow 
the balloon to ascend yet higher, at its own will ; 
and then a terrible event happened. 

By mischance the neck of his balloon, which should 
have been open, was out of reach and folded inwards 
in such a way as to prevent the free escape of the gas, 
which, at this great altitude, struggled for egress 
with a loud humming noise, giving him apprehensions 
of an accident which very shortly occurred, namely, 
the bursting of the lower part of his balloon with a 
loud report. It happened, however, that no extreme 
loss of gas ensued, and he commenced descending 
with a speed which, though considerable, was not 
very excessive. Still, he was eager to alight in safety, 
until a chance occurrence made him a second time 
that afternoon guilty of an act of boyish impetuosity. 
A party of volunteers firing a salute in his honour as 
he neared the ground, he instantly flung out 
papers, ballast, anything he could lay his hands 
on, and once again soared to a great height 
with his damaged balloon. He could then do no 
more, and presently subsiding to earth again, he ac- 
quired the welcome knowledge that even in such pre- 
carious circumstances a balloon may make a long 
fall with safety to its freight. 

Mr. Wise's zeal and indomitable spirit of enter- 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 97 

prise led to speedy developments of the art which 
he had espoused ; the road to success being fre- 
quently pointed out by failure or mishap. He 
quickly discarded the linen balloon for one of 
silk, on which he tried a new varnish composed of 
linseed oil and india-rubber, and, dressing several 
gores with this, he rolled them up and left them through 
a night in a drying loft, with the result that the next 
day they were disintegrated and on the point of burst- 
ing into flame by spontaneous combustion. Fresh 
silk and other varnish were then tried, but with in- 
different success. Next he endeavoured to dispense 
with sewing, and united the gores of yet another 
balloon by the mere adhesiveness of the varnish and 
application of a hot iron. This led to a gaping seam 
developing at the moment of an ascent, and then 
there followed a hasty and hazardous descent on a 
house-top and an exciting rescue by a gentleman 
who appeared opportunely at a third storey window. 
Further, another balloon had been destroyed, and 
Wise badly burned, at a descent, owing to a naked 
light having been brought near the escaping gas. It 
is then without wonder that we find him after this 
temporarily bankrupt, and resorting to his skill in 
instrument-making to recover his fortunes. Only, 
however, for a few months, after which he is before 
the public once more as a professional aeronaut. 
He now adopts coal gas for inflation, and incidents 
of an impressive nature crowd into his career, forcing 
important facts upon him. The special character- 
istics of his own country present peculiar difficulties ; 
broad rivers and vast forests become serious obstacles, 
H 



98 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

He is caught in the embrace of a whirlwind ; he nar- 
rowly escapes falling into a forest fire ; he is precipi- 
tated, but harmlessly, into a pine wood. Among other 
experiments, he makes a small copy of Mr. Cocking's 
parachute, and drops it to earth with a cat as pas- 
senger, proving thereby that that unfortunate gen- 
tleman's principle was really less in fault than the 
actual slenderness of the material used in his machine. 

We now approach one of Wise's boldest, and at 
the same time most valuable, experiments. It was 
the summer of 1839, an( ^ once again the old trouble 
of spontaneous combustion had destroyed a silk 
balloon which was to have ascended at East on, 
Pa. Undeterred, however, Wise resolutely adver- 
tised a fresh attempt, and, with only a clear month 
before the engagement, determined on hastily rigging 
up a cambric muslin balloon, soaking it in linseed oil 
and essaying the best exhibition that this improvised 
experiment could afford. It was intended to be- 
come a memorable one, inasmuch as, should he meet 
with no hindrance, his determination was nothing 
less than that of bursting this balloon at a great height, 
having firmly convinced himself that the machine in 
these circumstances would form itself into a natural 
parachute, and bring him to earth with every chance 
in favour of safety. In his own words, " Scientific 
calculations were on his side with a certainty as great 
and principles as comprehensive as that a pocket- 
handkerchief will not fall as rapidly to the ground 
when thrown out of a third storey window as will a 
brick." 

His balloon was specially contrived for the ex- 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 99 

periment in hand, having cords sewn to the upper 
parts of its seams, and then led down through the 
neck, where they were secured within reach, their 
office being that of rending the whole head of the bal- 
loon should this be desired. On this occasion a cat 
and a dog were taken up, one of these being let fall 
from a height of 2,000 feet in a Cocking's parachute, 
and landing in safety, the other being similarly dis- 
missed at an altitude of 4,000 feet in an oiled silk 
balloon made in the form of a collapsed balloon, which, 
after falling a little distance, expanded sufficiently to 
allow of its descending with a safe though somewhat 
vibratory motion. Its behaviour, at any rate, fully 
determined Wise on carrying out his own experiment. 
Being constructed entirely for the main object 
in view, the balloon had no true opening in the neck 
beyond an orifice of about an inch, and by the time a 
height of 13,000 feet had been reached the gas was 
streaming violently through this small hole, the entire 
globe being expanded nearly to bursting point, and 
the cords designed for rending the balloon very tense. 
At this critical period Wise owns to having experienced 
considerable nervous excitement, and observing far 
down a thunderstorm in progress he began to waver 
in his mind, and inclined towards relieving the balloon 
of its strain, and so abandoning his experiment, at 
least for the present. He remembers pulling out 
his watch to make a note of the hour, and, while thus 
occupied, the straining cords, growing tenser every 
moment, suddenly took charge of the experiment and 
burst the balloon of their own accord. The gas now 
rushed from the huge rent above tumultuously, and 



ioo THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

in some ten seconds had entirely escaped, causing the 
balloon to descend rapidly, until the lower part of the 
muslin, doubling in upwards, formed a species of 
parachute after the manner intended. The balloon 
now came down with zig-zag descent, and finally 
the car, striking the earth obliquely, tossed its oc- 
cupant out into a field unharmed. Shortly after 
this Wise experimented with further success with 
an exploded balloon. 

It is not a little remarkable that this pioneer of 
aeronautics in America — a contemporary of Charles 
Green in England, but working and investigating 
single-handed on perfectly independent lines — should 
have arrived at the same conclusions as did Green 
himself as to the possibility, which, in his opinion, 
amounted to a certainty, of being able to cross the 
Atlantic by balloon if only adequate funds were forth- 
coming. So intent was he on his bold scheme that, 
in the summer of 1843, he handed to the Lancaster 
Intelligencer a proclamation, which he desired might 
be conveyed to all publishers of newspapers on the 
globe. It contained, among other clauses, the fol- 
lowing : — 

" Having from a long experience in aeronautics 
been convinced that a constant and regular current 
of air is blowing at all times from, west to east, with a 
velocity of from twenty to forty and even sixty miles 
per hour, according to its height from the earth, and 
having discovered a composition which renders silk 
or muslin impervious to hydrogen gas, so that a balloon 
may be kept afloat for many weeks, I feel confident 
with these advantages that a trip across the Atlantic 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT, 101 

will not be attended with as much real danger as 
by the common mode of transition. The balloon is 
to be ioo feet in diameter, giving it a net ascending 
power of 25,000 lbs." It was further stated that the 
crew would consist of three persons, including a sea 
navigator, and a scientific landsman. The specifica- 
tions for the transatlantic vessel were also to include a 
seaworthy boat in place of the ordinary car. The sum 
requisite for this enterprise was, at the time, not 
realised ; but it should be mentioned that several 
years later a sufficient sum of money was actually 
subscribed. In the summer of 1873 the proprietors 
of the New York Daily Graphic provided for the con- 
struction of a balloon of no less than 400,000 cubic 
feet capacity, and calculated to lift 14,000 lbs. It 
was, however, made of bad material ; and, becoming 
torn in inflation, Wise condemned and declined to 
use it. A few months later, when it had been repaired, 
one Donaldson and two other adventurers, attempting 
a voyage with this ill-formed monster, ascended from 
New York, and were fortunate in corning down safely, 
though not without peril, somewhere in Connecticut. 
Failing in his grand endeavour, Wise continued 
to follow the career of a professional aeronaut for 
some years longer, of which he has left a full record, 
terminating with the spring of 1848. His ascents 
were always marked by carefulness of detail, and a 
coolness and courage in trying circumstances that 
secured him uniform success and universal regard. 
He was, moreover, always a close and intelligent ob- 
server, and many of his memoranda are of scientific 
value. 



IQ2 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

His description of an encounter with a storm- 
cloud in the June of 1843 has an interest of its own, 
and may not be considered overdrawn. It was an 
ascent from Carlisle, Pa., to celebrate the anni- 
versary of Bunker's Hill, and Wise was anxious 
to gratify the large concourse of people assembled, 
and thus was tempted, soon after leaving the ground, 
to dive up into a huge black cloud of peculiarly for- 
bidding aspect. This cloud appeared to remain sta- 
tionary while he swept beneath it, and, having reached 
its central position, he observed that its under sur- 
face was concave towards the earth, and at that 
moment he became swept upwards in a vortex that 
set his balloon spinning and swinging violently, while 
he himself was afflicted with violent nausea and a feel- 
ing of suffocation. The cold experienced now be- 
came intense, and the cordage became glazed with 
ice, yet this had no effect in checking the upward 
whirling of the balloon. Sunshine was beyond the 
upper limits of the cloud ; but this was no sooner 
reached than the balloon, escaping from the uprush, 
plunged down several hundred feet, only to be whirled 
up again, and this reciprocal motion was repeated 
eight or ten times during an interval of twenty minutes, 
in all of which time no expenditure of gas or discharge 
of ballast enabled the aeronaut to regain any control 
over his vessel. 

Statements concerning a thunderstorm witnessed 
at short range by Wise will compare with other ac- 
counts. The thunder " rattled " without any rever- 
berations, and when the storm was passing, and some 
dense clouds moving in the upper currents, the " sur- 



JOHN WISE, THE AMERICAN AERONAUT. 103 

face of the lower stratum swelled up suddenly like 
a boiling cauldron, which was immediately followed 
by the most brilliant ebullition of sparkling corusca- 
tions." Green, in his stormy ascent from Newbury, 
England, witnessed a thunderstorm below him, as 
will be remembered, while an upper cloud stratum 
lay at his own level. It was then that Green observed 
that " at every discharge of thunder all the detached 
pillars of clouds within the distance of a mile around 
became attracted." 

The author will have occasion, in due place, to 
give personal experiences of an encounter with a 
thunderstorm which will compare with the fore- 
going description. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS. , 

BEFORE proceeding to introduce the chief actors 
and their achievements in the period next before 
us, it will be instructive to glance at some of the 
principal ideas and methods in favour with aeronauts 
up to the date now reached. It will be seen that Wise 
in America, contrary to the practice of Green in our 
own country, had a strong attachment to the antique 
mode of inflation with hydrogen prepared by the 
vitriolic process ; and his balloons were specially made 
and varnished for the use of this gas. The advantage 
which he thus bought at the expense of much trouble 
and the providing of cumbersome equipment was 
obvious enough, and may be well expressed by a 
formula which holds good to-day, namely, that whereas 
1,000 cubic feet of hydrogen is capable of lifting 7 lbs., 
the same quantity of coal gas of ordinary quality will 
raise but 35 lbs. The lighter gas came into all Wise's 
calculations for bolder schemes. Thus, when he 
discusses the possibility of using a metal balloon, his 
figures work out as follows : If a balloon of 200 feet 
diameter were constructed out of copper, weighing 
one pound to the square foot ; if, moreover, some 
six tons were allowed for the weight of car and fas- 
tenings, an available lifting power would remain 
capable of raising 45 tons to an altitude of two miles. 
This calculation may appear somewhat startling, 





Photos by the Author. 



inflating a balloon 
(two stages). 



EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS. 105 

yet it is not only substantially correct, but Wise en- 
tertained no doubt as to the practicability of such a 
machine. For its inflation he suggests inserting a 
muslin balloon filled with air within the copper globe, 
and then passing hydrogen gas between the muslin 
and copper surfaces, which would exclude the inner 
balloon as the copper one filled up. 

His method of preparing hydrogen was practi- 
cally that still adopted in the field, and seems in his 
hands to have been seldom attended with difficulty. 
With eight common 130-gallon rum puncheons he 
could reckon on evolving 5,000 cubic feet of gas in 
an hour, using his elements in the following propor- 
tions : water, 560 lbs. ; sulphuric acid (sp. g. 1.85), 
144 lbs. ; iron turnings, 125 lbs. The gas, as given 
off, was cooled and purified by being passed through 
a head of water kept cool and containing lime in solu- 
tion. Contrasted with this, we find it estimated, 
according to the practice of this time, that a ton of 
good bituminous coal should yield 10,000 cubic feet 
of carburetted hydrogen fit for lighting purposes, 
and a further quantity which, though useless as an 
illuminant, is still of excellent quality for the aeronaut. 
It would even seem from a statement of Mr. Monck 
Mason that the value of coke in his day largely com- 
pensated for the cost of producing coal gas, so that 
in a large number of Green's ascents no charge what- 
ever was made for gas by the companies that supplied 
him. 

Some, at least, of the methods formerly recom- 
mended for the management of free balloons must in 
these days be modified. Green, as we have seen, 



io6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

was in favour of a trail rope of inordinate length, 
which he recommended both as an aid to steering 
and for a saving of ballast. In special circum- 
stances, and more particularly over the sea, this may 
be reckoned a serviceable adjunct, but over land its 
use, in this country at least, would be open to serious 
objection. The writer has seen the consternation, 
not to say havoc, that a trail rope may occasion when 
crossing a town, or even private grounds, and the 
actual damage done to a garden of hops, or to tele- 
graph or telephone wires, may be very serious indeed. 
Moreover, the statement made by some early prac- 
titioners that a trail rope will not catch so as to hold 
fast in a wood or the like, is not to be relied on, for an 
instance could be mentioned coming under the writer's 
knowledge where such a rope was the source of so 
much trouble in a high wind that it had to be cut 
away. 

The trouble arose in this way. The rope dragged 
harmlessly enough along the open ground. It would, 
likewise, negotiate exceedingly well a single tree or 
a whole plantation, catching and releasing itself with 
only such moderate tugs at the car as were not dis- 
turbing ; but, presently, its end, which had been 
caught and again released by one tree, swung free in 
air through a considerable gap to another tree, where, 
striking a horizontal bough, it coiled itself several 
times around, and thus held the balloon fast, which 
now, with the strength of the wind, was borne to the 
earth again and again, rebounding high in air after 
each impact, until freedom was gained only by the 
sacrifice of a portion of the rope. 



EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS: 107 

Wise recommends a pendant line of 600 or 800 
feet, capable of bearing a strain of 100 lbs., and with 
characteristic ingenuity suggests a special use which 
can be made of it, namely, that of having light ribbons 
tied on at every hundred feet, by means of which 
the drifts of lower currents may be detected. In 
this suggestion there is, indeed, a great deal of sound 
sense ; for there is, as will be shown hereafter, very 
much value to be attached to a knowledge of those 
air rivers that are flowing, often wholly unsuspected, 
at various heights. Small parachutes, crumpled paper, 
and other such-like bodies as are commonly thrown 
out and relied on to declare the lower drifts, are not 
wholly trustworthy, for this reason — that air-streams 
are often very slender, mere filaments, as they are 
sometimes called, and these, though setting in some 
definite direction, and capable of entrapping and 
wafting away some small body which may come within 
their influence, may not affect the travel of so big an 
object as a balloon, which can only partake of some 
more general air movement. 

Wise, by his expedient of tying ribbons at differ- 
ent points to his trail rope, would obtain much more 
correct and constant information respecting those 
general streams through which the pendant rope was 
moving. iV similar expedient adopted by the same 
ingenious aeronaut is worthy of imitation, namely, 
that of tying ribbons on to a rod projecting laterally 
from the car. These form a handy and constant tell- 
tale as to the flight of the balloon, for should they be 
fluttering upwards the sky sailor at once knows that his 
craft is descending, and that he must act accordingly. 



108 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

The material, pure silk, which was universally 
adopted up to and after the period we are now 
regarding, is not on every account to be reckoned 
the most desirable. In the first place, its cost alone 
is prohibitive, and next, although lighter than any 
kind of linen, strength for strength, it requires a greater 
weight of varnish, which, moreover, it does not take 
so kindly as does fabric made of vegetable tissue. 
Further, paradoxical as it may appear, its great strength 
is not entirely an advantage. There are occasions 
which must come into the experience of every zealous 
aeronaut when his balloon has descended in a rough 
wind, and in awkward country. This may, indeed, 
happen even when the ascent has been made in calm. 
Squalls of wind may spring up at short notice, or 
after traversing only two or three counties a strong 
gale may be found on the earth, though such was 
absent in the starting ground. This is more par- 
ticularly the case when the landing chances to be on 
high ground in the neighbourhood of the sea. In 
these circumstances, the careful balloonist, who will 
generally be forewarned by the ruffle on any water 
he may pass, or by the drift of smoke, the tossing of 
trees, or by their very rustling or " singing " wafted 
upwards to him, will, if possible, seek for his landing 
place the lee of a wood or some other sheltered spot. 
But, even with all his care, he will sometimes find 
himself, on reaching earth, being dragged violently 
across country on a mad course which the anchor 
cannot check. Now, the country through which he 
is making an unwilling steeplechase may be difficult, 
or even dangerous. Rivers, railway cuttings, or other 



EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS. 109 

undesirable obstacles may lie ahead, or, worse yet, 
such a death trap as in such circumstances almost 
any part of Derbyshire affords, with its stone walls, 
its precipitous cliffs, and deep rocky dells. To be 
dragged at the speed of an express train through ter- 
ritory of this description will presently mean damage 
to something, perhaps to telegraph poles, to roofs, or 
crops, and if not, then to the balloon itself. Some- 
thing appertaining to it must be victimised, and it is 
in all ways best that this should be the fabric of the 
balloon itself. If made of some form, or at least some 
proportion of linen, this will probably rend ere long, 
and, allowing the gas to escape, will soon bring itself 
to rest. On the other hand, if the balloon proper is 
a silk one, with sound net and in good condition, it 
is probable that something else will give way first, 
and that something may prove to be the hapless 
passenger or passengers. 

And here be it laid down as one first and all-import- 
ant principle, that in any such awkward predica- 
ment as that just described, if there be more than one 
passenger aboard, let none attempt to get out. In 
the first place, he may very probably break a limb 
in so doing, inasmuch as the tangle of the ropes will 
not allow of his getting cut readily ; or, when actually 
on the ground, he may be caught and impaled by the 
anchor charging and leaping behind. But, worse than 
all, he may, in any case, jeopardise the lives of his 
companions, who stand in need of all the available 
weight and help that the car contains up to the moment 
of coming to final rest. 

We have already touched on the early notions 



no THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

as to the means of steering a balloon. Oars had been 
tested without satisfactory result, and the concep- 
tion of a rotary screw found favour among theorists 
at this time, the principle being actually tried with 
success in working models, which, by mechanical 
means, could be made to flit about in the still air of 
the lecture room ; but the only feasible method 
advocated was that already alluded to, which depended 
on the undesirable action of a trail rope dragging over 
the ground or through water. The idea was, of course, 
perfectly practical, and was simply analogous to the 
method adopted by sailors, who, when floating with 
the stream but without wind, are desirous of gaining 
«' steerage way." While simply drifting with the flood, 
they are unable to guide their vessel in any 
way, and this, in practice, is commonly effected by 
simply propelling the vessel faster than the stream, 
in which case the rudder at once becomes available. 
But the same result is equally well obtained by slowing 
the vessel, and this is easily accomplished by a cable, 
with a small anchor or other weight attached, dragging 
below the vessel. This cable is essentially the same 
as the guide-rope of the older aeronauts. 

It is when we come to consider the impressions 
and sensations described by sky voyagers of bygone 
times that we find them curiously at variance with 
our own. As an instance, we may state that the earth, 
as seen from a high-flying balloon, used to be almost 
always described as appearing concave, or like a huge 
basin, and ingenious attempts were made to prove 
mathematically that this must be so. The laws of 
refraction are brought in to prove the fact ; or, again, 



EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS. in 

the case is stated thus : Supposing the extreme horizon 
to be seen when the balloon is little more than a 
mile high, the range of view on all sides will then be, 
roughly, some eighty miles. If, then, a line were drawn 
from the aerial observer to this remote distance, that 
line would be almost horizontal ; so nearly so that he 
cannot persuade himself that his horizon is otherwise 
than still on a level with his eye ; yet the earth below 7 
him lies, as it seems, at the bottom of a huge gulf. 
Thus the whole visible earth appears as a vast bowl 
or basin. This is extremely ingenious reasoning, and 
not to be disregarded ; but the fact remains that in 
the experience of the writer and of many others whom 
he has consulted, there is no such optical illusion as 
I have just discussed, and to their vision it is impos- 
sible to regard the earth as anything but uniformly 
flat. 

Another impression invariably insisted on by early 
balloonists is that the earth, on quitting it, appears to 
drop away into an abyss, leaving the voyagers motion- 
less, and this illusion must, indeed, be probably uni- 
versal. It is the same illusion as the apparent gliding 
backwards of objects to a traveller in a railway car- 
riage ; only in this latter case the rattling and shaking 
of the carriage helps the mind to grasp the real fact 
that the motion belongs to the train itself ; whereas it 
is otherwise v/ith a balloon, whose motion is so per- 
fectly smooth as to be quite imperceptible. 

Old ideas, formed upon insufficient observations, 
even if erroneous, were slow to die. Thus it used to 
be stated that an upper cloud floor adapted itself to 
the contour of the land over which it rested, giving 



ii2 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

what Mr. Monck Mason has called a " phrenological 
estimate " of the character of the earth below ; the 
clouds, " even when under the influence of rapid 
motion, seeming to accommodate themselves to all 
variations of form in the surface of the subjacent soil, 
rising with its prominences and sinking with its depres- 
sions." Probably few aeronauts of the present time 
will accept the statement. 

It used commonly to be asserted, and is so often 
to this day, that a feeling as of sea-sickness is experi- 
enced in balloon travel, and the notion has undoubtedly 
arisen from the circumstances attending an ascent in 
a captive balloon. It were well, now that ballooning 
bids fair to become popular, to disabuse the public 
mind of such a wholly false idea. The truth is that a 
balloon let up with a lengthy rope and held captive 
will, with a fitful breeze, pitch and sway in a manner 
which may induce all the unpleasant feelings attending 
a rough passage at sea. It may do worse, and even 
be borne to earth with a puff of wind which may come 
unexpectedly, and considerably unsettle the nerves 
of any holiday passenger. I could tell of a " captive " 
that had been behaving itself creditably on a not very 
settled day suddenly swooping over a roadway and 
down into public gardens, where it lay incontinently 
along the ground, and then, before the astonished pas- 
sengers could attempt to alight, it was seized with 
another mood, and, mounting once again majestically 
skyward, submitted to be hauled down with all be- 
coming grace and ease. . It is owing to their vagaries 
and want of manageability that, as will be shown, 
" captives " are of uncertain use in war. On the other 



EARLY METHODS AND IDEAS. 113 

hand, a free balloon is exempt from such disadvantages, 
and at moderate heights not the smallest feeling of 
nausea is ever experienced. The only unpleasant 
sensation, and that not of any gravity, ever complained 
of, is a peculiar tension in the ears experienced in a 
rapid ascent, or more often, perhaps, in a descent. The 
cause, which is trivial and easily removed, should be 
properly understood, and cannot be given in clearer 
language than that used by Professor Tyndall : — ■ 
" Behind the tympanic membrane e'xists a cavity — 
the drum of the ear — in part crossed by a series of 
bones, and in part occupied by air. This cavity com- 
municates with the mouth by means of a duct called 
the Eustachian tube. This tube is generally closed, 
the air space behind the tympanic membrane being 
thus cut off from the external air. If, under these 
circumstances, the external air becomes denser, it will 
press the tympanic membrane inwards ; if, on the 
other hand, the air on the other side becomes rarer, 
while the Eustachian tube becomes closed, the mem- 
brane will be pressed outwards. Pain is felt in both 
cases, and partial deafness is experienced. . . . By 
the act of swallowing the Eustachian tube is opened, 
and thus equilibrium is established between the exter- 
nal and internal pressure." 

Founded on physical facts more or less correct in 
themselves, come a number of tales of olden days, which 
are at least more marvellous than credible, the fol- 
lowing serving as an example. The scientific truth 
underlying the story is the well-known expedient of 
placing a shrivelled apple under the receiver of an air 
pump. As the air becomes rarefied the apple swells, 
1 



H4 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

smooths itself out, and presently becomes round and 
rosy as it was in the summer time. It is recorded 
that on one occasion a man of mature years made an 
ascent, accompanied by his son, and, after reaching 
some height, the youth remarked on how young his 
father was looking. They still continued to ascend, 
and the same remark was repeated more than once. 
And at last, having now reached attenuated regions, 
the son cried in astonishment, " Why, dad, you ought 
to be at school ! " The cause of this remark was that 
in the rarefied air all the wrinkles had come out of the 
old man's face, and his cheeks were as chubby as his 
son's. 

This discussion of old ideas should not be closed 
without mention of a plausible plea for the balloon 
made by Wise and others on the score of its value to 
health. Lofty ascents have proved a strain on even 
robust constitutions— the heart may begin to suffer, 
or ills akin to mountain sickness may intervene before 
a height equal to that of our loftiest mountain is 
reached. But many have spoken of an exhilaration 
of spirits not inferior to that of the mountaineer, 
which is experienced, and without fatigue, in sky 
voyages reasonably indulged in — of a light-hearted- 
ness, a glow of health, a sharpened appetite, and the 
keen enjoyment of mere existence. Nay, it has 
been seriously affirmed that " more good may be got 
by the invalid in an hour or two while two miles up 
on a fine summer's day than is to be gained in an 
entire voyage from New York to Madeira by sea." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE COMMENCEMENT ■ OF A NEW ERA. 

RESUMING the roll of progressive aeronauts in 
England whose labours were devoted to the 
practical conquest of the air, and whose methods and 
mechanical achievements mark the road of advance by 
which the successes of to-day have been obtained, 
there stand out prominently two individuals, of whom 
one has already received mention in these pages. 

The period of a single life is seldom sufficient to 
allow within its span the full development of any new 
departure in art or science, and it cannot, therefore, 
be wondered at if Charles Green, though reviving and 
re-modelling the art of ballooning in our own country, 
even after an exceptionally long and successful career, 
left that pursuit to which he had given new birth 
virtually still in its infancy. 

The year following that in which Green conducted 
the famous Nassau voyage we find him experimenting 
in the same balloon with his chosen friend and col- 
league, Edward Spencer, solicitor, of Barnsbury, who, 
only nine years later, compiles memoranda of thirty- 
four ascents, made under every variety of circum- 
stance, many being of a highly enterprising nature. 
We find him writing enthusiastically of the raptures 
he experienced when sailing over London in night 
hours, of lofty ascents and extremely low temperatures, 



n6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

of speeding twenty-eight miles in twenty minutes, of 
grapnel ropes breaking, and of a cross-country race 
of four miles through woods and hedges. Such was 
Mr. Spencer the elder, and if further evidence were 
needed of his practical acquaintance with, as well as 
personal devotion to, his adopted profession of 
aeronautics, we have it in the store of working calcu- 
lations and other minute of the craft, most carefully 
compiled in manuscript by his own hand ; these memo- 
randa being to this day constantly consulted by his 
grandsons, the present eminent aeronauts, Messrs. 
Spencer Brothers, as supplying a manual of reliable 
data for the execution of much of the most import- 
ant parts of their work. 

In the terrific ordeal and risk entailed by the daring 
and fatal parachute descent of Cocking, Green re- 
quired an assistant of exceptional nerre and relia- 
bility, and, as has been recorded, nis choice at once 
fell on Edward Spencer. In this choice it has already 
been shown that he was well justified, and in the try- 
ing circumstances that ensued Green frankly owns 
that it was his competent companion who was the 
first to recover himself. A few years later, when a 
distinguished company, among whom were Albert 
Smith and Shirley Brooks, made a memorable ascent 
from Cremorne, Edward Spencer is one of the select 
party. 

Some account of this voyage should be given, and 
it need not be said that no more graphic account is 
to be found than that given by the facile pen of Albert 
Smith himself. His personal narrative also forms an 
instructive contrast to another which he had occasion 






THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. 117 

to give to the world shortly afterwards, and which 
shall be duly noticed. The enthusiastic writer first 
describes, with apparent pride, the company that 
ascended with him. Besides Mr. Shirley Brooks, 
there were Messrs. Davidson, of the Garrick Club ; 
Mr. John Lee, well known in theatrical circles ; Mr. 
P. Thompson, of Guy's Hospital, and others — ten in 
all, including Charles Green as skipper, and Edward 
Spencer, who, sitting in the rigging, was entrusted 
with the all-important management of the valve 
rope. 

" The first sensation experienced," Albert Smith 
continues, " was not that we were rising, but that the 
balloon remained fixed, whilst all the world below 
was rapidly falling away ; while the cheers with which 
they greeted our departure grew fainter, and the 
cheerers themselves began to look like the inmates 
of many sixpenny Noah's Arks grouped upon a billiard 
table. . . . Our hats would have held millions. . . . 
And most strange is the roar of the city as it comes 
surging into the welkin as though the whole metropolis 
cheered you with one voice. . . . Yet none beyond 
the ordinary passengers are to be seen. The noise 
is as inexplicable as the murmur in the air at hot 
summer noontide." 

The significance of this last remark will be insisted 
on when the writer has to tell his own experiences 
aloft over London, as also a note to the effect that 
there were seen " large enclosed fields and gardens 
and pleasure grounds where none were supposed to 
exist by ordinary passengers." Another interesting 
note, having reference to a once familiar feature on 



ir8 ■ THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

the river, now disappearing, related to the paddle 
boats of those days, the steamers making a very 
beautiful effect, " leaving two long wings of foam 
behind them similar to the train of a table rocket." 
Highly suggestive, too, of the experiences of railway 
travellers in the year 1847 * s the account of the alight- 
ing, which, by the way, was obviously of no very rude 
nature. " Every time," says the writer, " the grapnel 
catches in the ground the balloon is pulled up suddenly 
with a shock that would soon send anybody from his 
seat, a jerk like that which occurs when fresh car- 
riages are brought up to a railway train." But the 
concluding paragraph in this rosy narrative affords 
another and a very notable contrast to the story 
which that same writer had occasion to put on record 
before that same year had passed. 

" We counsel everybody to go up in a balloon. . . . 
In spite of the apparent frightful fragility of cane and 
network nothing can in reality be more secure. . . . 
The stories of pressure on the ears, intense cold, and 
the danger of coming down are all fictions. . . . In- 
deed, we almost wanted a few perils to give a little 
excitement to the trip, and have some notion, if pos- 
sible, of going up the next time at midnight with 
fireworks in a thunderstorm, throwing away all the 
ballast, fastening down the valve, and seeing where 
the wind will send us." 

The fireworks, the thunderstorm, and the throw- 
ing away of ballast, all came off on the 15th of the 
following October, when Albert Smith made his 
second ascent, this time from Vauxhall Gardens, under 
the guidance of Mr. Gypson, and accompanied by 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. 119 

two fellow-passengers. Fireworks, which were to be 
displayed when aloft, were suspended on a framework 
forty feet below the car. Lightning was also playing 
around as they cast off. The description which Albert 
Smith gives of London by night as seen from an esti- 
mated elevation of 4,000 feet, should be compared with 
other descriptions that will be given in these pages :— 

" In the obscurity all traces of houses and enclo- 
sures are lost sight of. I can compare it to nothing 
else than floating over dark blue • and boundless sea 
spangled with hundreds of thousands of stars. These 
stars were the lamps. We could see them stretching 
over the river at the bridges, edging its banks, form- 
ing squares and long parallel lines of light in the streets 
and solitary parks. Further and further apart until 
they were altogether lost in the suburbs. The effect 
was bewildering.' 5 

At 7,000 feet, one of the passengers, sitting in the 
ring, remarked that the balloon was getting very 
tense, and the order was given to " ease her " by 
opening the top valve. The valve line was accord- 
ingly pulled, " and immediately afterwards we heard 
a noise similar to the escape of steam in a locomotive, 
and the lower part of the balloon collapsed rapidfy, 
and appeared to fly up into the upper portion. . . . 
At the same instant the balloon began to fall with 
appalling velocity, the immense mass of loose silk 
surging and rustling frightfully over our heads. . . . 
retreating up away from us more and more into the 
head of the balloon. The suggestion was made to 
throw everything over that might lighten the balloon. 
I had two sandbags in my lap, which were cast away 



120 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

directly. . . . There were several large bags of bal- 
last, and some bottles of wine, and these were instantly 
thrown away, but no effect was perceptible. The 
wind still appeared to be rushing up past us at a fear- 
ful rate, and, to add to the horror, we came among 
the still expiring discharge of the fireworks which 
floated in the air, so that little bits of exploded cases 
and touch-paper, still incandescent, attached them- 
selves to the cordage of the balloon and were blown 
into sparks. ... I presume we must have been up- 
wards of a mile from the earth. . . . How long we 
were descending I have not the slightest idea, but two 
minutes must have been the outside. . . . We now 
saw the houses, the roofs of which appeared advanc- 
ing to meet us, and the next instant, as we dashed by 
their summits, the words, ' Hold hard ! J burst 
simultaneously from all the party. . . . We were 
all directly thrown out of the car along the ground, 
and, incomprehensible as it now appears to me, no- 
body was seriously hurt." 

But " not so incomprehensible, after all," will be 
the verdict of all who compare the above narrative 
with the ascents given in a foregoing account of how 
Wise had fared more than once when his balloon had 
burst. For, as will be readily guessed, the balloon 
had in this case also burst, owing to the release of the 
upper valve being delayed too long, and the balloon 
had in the natural way transformed itself into a true 
parachute. Moreover, the fall, which, by Albert 
Smith's own showing, was that of about a mile in two 
minutes, was not more excessive than one which 
will presently be recorded of Mr. Glaisher, who 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. 121 

escaped with no material injury beyond a few 
bruises. 

One fact has till now been omitted with regard 
to the above sensational voyage, namely, the name 
of the passenger who, sitting in the ring, was the first 
to point out the imminent danger of the balloon. This 
individual was none other than Mr. Henry Coxwell, 
the second, indeed, of the two who were mentioned 
in the opening paragraph of this chapter as marking 
the road of progress which it is the scope of these 
pages to trace, and to whom we must now formally 
introduce our readers. 

This justly famous sky pilot, whose practical 
acquaintance with ballooning extends over more than 
forty years, was the son of a naval officer residing near 
Chatham, and in his autobiography he describes en- 
thusiastically how, a lad of nine years old, he watched 
through a sea telescope a balloon, piloted by Charles 
Green, ascend from Rochester and, crossing the 
Thames, disappear in distance over the Essex flats. 
He goes on to describe how the incident started him 
in those early days on boyish endeavours to construct 
fire balloons and paper parachutes. Some years later 
his home, on the death of his father, being transferred 
to Eltham, he came within frequent view of such 
balloons as, starting from the neighbourhood of 
London, will through the summer drift with the pre- 
vailing winds over that part of Kent. And it was 
here that, ere long, he came in at the death of another 
balloon of which Green was in charge. 

And from this time onwards the schoolboy with 
the strange hobby was constantly able to witness the 



122 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

flights and even the inflations of those ships of the 
air, which, his family associations notwithstanding, 
took precedence of all boyish diversions. 

His elder brother, now a naval officer, entirely 
failed to divert his aspirations into other channels, 
and it was when the boy had completed sixteen sum- 
mers that an aeronautic enterprise attracted not only 
his own, but public attention also. It was the build- 
ing of a mammoth balloon at Vauxhall under the 
superintendence of Mr. Green. The launching of this 
huge craft when completed was regarded as so great 
an occasion that the young Coxwell, who had by this 
time obtained a commercial opening abroad, was 
allowed, at his earnest entreaty, to stay till the event 
had come off, and fifty years after the hardened sky 
sailor is found describing with a boyish enthusiasm 
how thirty-six policemen were needed round that 
balloon ; how enormous weights were attached to 
the cordage, only to be lifted feet above the ground ; 
while the police were compelled to pass their staves 
through the meshes to prevent the cords cutting their 
hands. At this ascent Mr. Hollond was a passenger, 
and by the middle of the following November all 
Europe was ringing with the great Nassau venture. 

Commercial business did not suit the young Cox- 
well, and at the age of one-and-twenty we find him 
trying his hand at the profession of surgeon-dentist, 
not, however, with any prospect of its keeping him 
from the longing of his soul, which grew stronger and 
stronger upon him. It was not till the summer of 
1844 that Mr. Hampton, giving an exhibition from 
the White Conduit Gardens, Pentonville, offered the 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. 123 

young man, then twenty-five years old, his first 
ascent. 

In after years Coxwell referred to his first sensa- 
tions in characteristic language, contrasting them 
with the experiences of the mountaineer. " In Alpine 
travels, 5 ' he says, " the process is so slow, and contact 
with the crust of the earth so palpable, that the tra- 
veller is gradually prepared for each successive phase 
of view as it presents itself. But in the balloon survey, 
cities, villages, and vast tracts for observation spring 
almost magically before the eye, and change in aspect 
and size so pleasingly that bewilderment first and 
then unbounded admiration is sure to follow." 

The ice was now fairly broken, and, not suffering 
professional duties to be any hindrance, Coxwell began 
to make a series of ascents under the leadership of 
two rival balloonists, Gale and Gypson. One voyage 
made with the latter he describes as leading to the 
most perilous descent in the annals of aerostation. 
This was the occasion, given above, on which Albert 
Smith was a passenger, and which that talented writer 
describes in his own fashion. He does not, however, 
add the fact, worthy of being chronicled, that exactly 
a week after the appalling adventure Gypson and 
Coxwell, accompanied by a Captain whose name 
does not transpire, and loaded with twice the previous 
weight of fireworks, made a perfectly successful night 
ascent and descent in the same balloon. 

It is very shortly after this that we find Coxwell 
seduced into undertaking for its owners the actual 
management of a balloon, the property of Gale, and 
now to be known as the " Sylph." With this craft 



124 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

he practically began his career as a professional balloon- 
ist, and after a few preliminary ascents made in 
England, was told off to carry on engagements in 
Belgium. 

A long series of ascents was now made on the 
Continent, and in the troubled state of affairs some 
stirring scenes were visited, not without some real 
adventure. One occasion attended with imminent 
risk occurred at Berlin in 1851. Coxwell relates that 
a Prussian labourer whom he had dismissed for bad 
conduct, and who almost too manifestly harboured 
revenge, nevertheless begged hard for a re-engage- 
ment, which, as the man was a handy fellow, Coxwell 
at length assented to. He took up three passengers 
beside himself, and at an elevation of some 3,000 feet 
found it necessary to open the valve, when, on pulling 
the cord, one of the top shutters broke and remained 
open, leaving a free aperture of 26 inches by 12 inches, 
and occasioning such a copious discharge of gas that 
nothing short of a providential landing could save 
disaster. But the providential landing came, the 
party falling into the embrace of a fruit tree in an 
orchard. It transpired afterwards that the labourer 
had been seen to tamper with the valve, the connect- 
ing lines of which he had partially severed. 

Returning to England in 1852, Coxwell, through 
the accidents inseparable from his profession, found 
himself virtually in possession of the field. Green, now 
advanced in years, was retiring from the public life 
in which he had won so much fame and honour. Gale 
was dead, killed in an ascent at Bordeaux. Only one 
aspirant contested the place of public aeronaut — 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF A NEW ERA. 125 

one Goulston, who had been Gale's patron. Before 
many months, however, he too met with a balloonist's 
death, being dashed against some stone walls when 
ascending near Manchester. 

It will not be difficult to form an estimate of how 
entirely the popularity of the balloon was now re- 
established in England, from the mere fact that before 
the expiration of the year Coxwell had been called 
upon to make thirty-six voyages. Some of these 
were from Glasgow, and here a certain coincidence 
took place which is too curious to be omitted. A 
descent effected near Milngavie took place in the same 
field in which Sadler, twenty-nine years before, had 
also descended, and the same man who caught the 
rope of Mr. Sadler's balloon performed the same 
service once again for a fresh visitor from the skies. 

The following autumn Coxwell, in fulfilling one 
out of many engagements, found himself in a dilemma 
which bore resemblance in a slight degree to a far more 
serious predicament in which the writer became in- 
volved, and which must be told in due place. The 
preparations for the ascent, which w T as from the Mile 
End Road, had been hurried, and after finally getting 
away at a late hour in the evening, it was found that 
the valve line had got caught in a fold of the silk, 
and could not be operated. In consequence, the bal- 
loon was, of necessity, left to take its own chance 
through the night, and, after rising to a considerable 
height, it slowly lost buoyancy during the chilly hours, 
and, gradually settling, came to earth near Basing- 
stoke, where the voyager, failing to get help or shelter, 
made his bed within his own car, lying in an open 



126 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

field, as other aeronauts have had to do in like cir- 
cumstances. 

Coxwell tells of a striking phenomenon seen during 
that voyage. " A splendid meteor was below the 
car, and apparently about 600 feet distant. It was 
blue and yellow, moving rapidly in a N.E. direction, 
and became extinguished without noise or sparks." 



CHAPTER XL 

THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 

AT this point we must, for a brief while, drop the 
. history of the famous aeronaut whose early career 
we have been briefly sketching in the last chapter, 
and turn our attention to a new .feature of English 
ballooning. We have, at last, to record some genu- 
inely scientific ascents, which our country now, all 
too tardily, instituted. It was the British Associa- 
tion that took the initiative, and the two men they 
chose for their purpose were both exceptionally quali- 
fied for the task they had in hand. The practical 
balloonist was none other than the veteran Charles 
Green, now in his sixty-seventh year, but destined 
yet to enjoy nearly twenty years more of life. The 
scientific expert was Mr. John Welsh, well fitted for 
the projected work by long training at Kew Obser- 
vatory. The balloon which they used is itself worthy 
of mention, being the great Nassau Balloon of olden 
fame. 

Welsh was quick to realise more clearly than any 
former experimentalist that on account of the absence 
of breeze in a free balloon, as also on account of great 
solar radiation, the indications of thermometers would, 
without special precautions, be falsified. He therefore 
invented a form of aspirating thermometer, the ear- 
liest to be met with, and far in advance of any that 
were subsequently used by other scientists. It con- 



128 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

sisted of a polished tube, in which thermometers were 
enclosed, and through which a stream of air was forced 
by bellows. 

The difficulty of obtaining really accurate read- 
ings where thermometers are being quickly trans- 
ported through varying temperatures is generally not 
duly appreciated. In the case of instruments carried 
in a balloon it should be remembered that the balloon 
itself conveys, clinging about it, no inconsiderable 
quantity of air, brought from other levels, while the 
temperature of its own mass will be liable to affect any 
thermometer in close neighbourhood. Moreover, any 
ordinary form of thermometer is necessarily sluggish 
in action, as may be readily noticed. If, for example, 
one be carried from a warm room to a cold passage, 
or vice versa, it will be seen that the column moves 
very deliberately, and quite a long interval will elapse 
before it reaches its final position, the cause being 
that the entire instrument, with any stand or mount- 
ing that it may have, will have to adapt itself to the 
change of temperature before a true record will be 
obtained. This difficulty applies unavoidably to all 
thermometers in some degree, and the skill of instru- 
ment makers has been taxed to reduce the errors to 
a minimum. It is necessary, in any case, that a con- 
stant stream of surrounding air should play upon the 
instrument, and though this is most readily effected 
when instruments are carried aloft by kites, yet even 
thus it is thought that an interval of some minutes 
has to elapse before any form of thermometer will 
faithfully record any definite change of temperature. 
It is on this account that some allowance must be 



THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE: 129 

made for observations which will, in due place, be 
recorded of scientific explorers ; the point to be borne 
in mind being that, as was mentioned in a former 
chapter, such observations will have to be regarded as 
giving readings which are somewhat too high in ascents 
and too low in descents. Two forms of thermometers 
of extremely simple construction, yet possessed of great 
sensibility, will be discussed in later chapters. 

The thermometers that Welsh used were undoubted- 
ly far superior to any that were devised before his 
time, and it is much to be regretted that they were 
allowed to fall into disuse. Perhaps the most impor- 
tant stricture on the observations that will have to be 
recorded is that the observers were not provided with 
a base station, on which account the value of results 
was impaired. It was not realised that it was 
necessary to make observations on the ground to 
compare with those that were being made at high 
altitudes. 

Welsh made, in all, four ascents in the summer 
and autumn of 1852, and in his report he is careful to 
give the highest praise to his colleague, Green, whose 
control over his balloon he describes as "so complete 
that none who accompanied him can be otherwise 
than relieved from all apprehension, and free to devote 
attention calmly to the work before him." 

The first ascent was made at 3.49 p.m. on August 
the 17th, under a south wind and with clouds covering 
some three-quarters of the sky. Welsh's first remark 
is significant, and will be appreciated by anyone w 7 ho 
has attempted observational work in a balloon. He 
states naively that " a short time was lost at first in 
J 



130 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

an attempt to put the instruments into more con- 
venient order, and also from the novelty of the situa- 
tion." Then he mentions an observation which, in 
the experience of the writer, is a common one. The 
lowest clouds, which were about 2,500 feet high and 
not near the balloon, were passed without being 
noticed ; other clouds were passed at different heights ; 
and, finally, a few star-shaped crystals of snow ; but 
the sun shone almost constantly. Little variation 
occurred in the direction of travel, which averaged 
thirty-eight miles an hour, and the descent took place 
at 5.20 p.m. at Swavesey, near Cambridge. 

The second ascent took place at 4.43 p.m. on 
August 26th, under a gentle east wind and a partially 
obscured sky. The clouds were again passed without 
being perceived. This was at the height of 3,000 
feet, beyond which was very clear sky of deep blue. 
The air currents up to the limits of 12,000 feet set from 
varying directions. The descent occurred near 
Chesham at 7.45 p.m. . 

The third ascent, at 2.35 p.m. on October the 21st, 
was made into a sky covered with dense cloud masses 
lying within 3,000 and 3,700 feet. The sun was then 
seen shining through cirrus far up. The shadow of 
the balloon was also seen on the cloud, fringed with 
a glory, and about this time there was seen " stretch- 
ing for a considerable length in a serpentine course, 
over the surface of the cloud, a well-defined belt, 
having the appearance of a broad road." 

Being now at 12,000 feet, Green thought it prudent 
to reconnoitre his position, and, finding they were near 
the sea, descended at 4.20 p.m. at Rayleigh, in Essex. 



Royal Gardens, Vanxhall. 

If ost Gracious BE ij< sty, Pn s< <> /li ><-»t& the 3oy/>l Family 

Equestrian Aerostation I 

THE VETJEHAM 



ASCENT on HORSEBACK 
VICTORIA™ BALLOON, 

ON 

Wednesday Evening , July 31. 



Society tor the Prevea- 

tion of Cruelty ts 

Anixa&is S 

DARING FEAT \%1 E 



iHors 




Corpor.il Sufferings &»& 
Cruel Restraint 



THE VETERAN GREEN 

WILI, MOUHT HIS HORSD 

At, half-past Seven precisely. 

All Jh*» ordinary Sutertainmeals to follow hb mediately, 

WITHO0T ABBITIOMAJb CHARGE. 

Boor* opei. a; o'clock— th* As;.-»t puftctuali) at ball-past 7— 
Free L?st entirely suspended Public Pivrs excepted ; and not fta 
Order admitted. AdinlSSlOtt 2S» 6d. 



POSTER ANNOUNCING HORSEBACK 
ASCENT OF GREEN AT VAUXHALL. 

From the British Museum. 



THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 131 

Some important notes on the polarisation of the clouds 
were made. 

The fourth and final voyage was made in a fast 
wind averaging fifty knots from the north-east. Thin 
scud was met at 1,900 feet, and an upper stratum at 
4,500 feet, beyond which was bright sun. The main 
shift of wind took place just as the upper surface of 
the first stratum was reached. In this ascent Welsh 
reached his greatest elevation, 22,930 feet, when both 
Green and himself experienced considerable difficulty 
in respiration and much fatigue. The sea being now 
perceived rapidly approaching, a hasty descent was 
made, and many of the instruments were broken. 

In summarising his results Welsh states that " the 
temperature of the air decreases uniformly with 
height above the earth's surface until at a certain 
elevation, varying on different days, decrease is ar- 
rested, and for the space of 2,000 or 3,000 feet the 
temperature remains nearly constant, or even in- 
creases, the regular diminution being again resumed 
and generally maintained at a rate slightly less rapid 
than in the lower part of the atmosphere, and com- 
mencing from a higher temperature than would have 
existed but for the interruption noticed." The 
analysis of the upper air show r ed the proportion of 
oxygen and nitrogen to vary scarcely more than at 
different spots on the earth. 

As it is necessary at this point to take leave of 
the veteran Green as a practical aeronaut, we may 
here refer to one or two noteworthy facts and incidents 
relating to his eventful career. In 1850 M. Poitevin 
is said to have attracted 140,000 people to Paris to 



132 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

look at an exhibition of himself ascending in a balloon 
seated on horseback, after which Madame Poitevin 
ascended from Cremorne Gardens in the same manner, 
the exhibition being intended as a representation of 
' c Europa on a Bull." This, however, was discounten- 
anced by the authorities and withdrawn. The feats 
wen', in reality, merely the repetitions of one 
that had been conceived and extremely well carried 
out by Green many years before — as long ago, in fact, 
as 1828, when he arranged to make an ascent from 
the Eagle Tavern, City Road, seated on a pony. To 
carry out his intention, he discarded the ordinary car, 
replacing it with a small platform, which was pro- 
vided with places to receive the pony's feet ; while 
straps attached to the hoop were passed under the 
animal's body, pre, venting it from lying down or from 
making any violent movement. This the creature 
seemed in no way disposed to attempt, and when all 
had been successfully carried out and an easy descent 
effected at Beckenham, the pony was discovered 
eating a meal of beans witli which it had been supplied. 
Several interesting observations have been re- 
corded by Green on different occasions, some of which 
are highly instructive from a practical or scientific 
point of view. On an ascent from Vauxhall, in which 
he was accompanied by his friend Spencer and Mr. 
Rush, lie recorded how, as he constantly and some- 
what rapidly rose, the wind changed its direction 
from N.W. through N. to N.E., while lie remained 
over the metropolis, the balloon all the while rotating 
on its axis. This continual swinging or revolving of 
the balloon Green considers an accompaniment of 



THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 133 

either a rapid ascent or descent, but it may be ques- 
tioned whether it is not merely a consequence of 
changing currents, or, sometimes, of an initial spin 
given inadvertently to the balloon at the moment 
of its being liberated. The phenomenon of marked 
change which he describes in the upper currents is 
highly interesting, and tallies with what the writer 
has frequently experienced over London proper. Such 
higher currents may be due to natural environment, 
and to conditions necessarily prevailing over so vast 
and varied a city, and they may be able to play an all- 
important part in the dispersal of London smoke or 
fog. This point will be touched on later. In this 
particular voyage Green records that as he was rising 
at the moment when his barometer reached 19 inches, 
the thermometer he carried registered 46 , while on 
coming down, when the barometer again marked 19 
inches, the same thermometer recorded only 22°. It 
will not fail to be recognised that there is doubtless here 
an example of the errors alluded to above, inseparable 
from readings taken in ascent and descent. 

A calculation made by Green in his earlier years 
has a certain value. By the time he had accomplished 
200 ascents he was at pains to compute that he had 
travelled across country some 6,000 miles, which had 
been traversed in 240 hours. From this it would follow 
that the mean rate of travel in aerial voyages will be 
about twenty-five miles per hour. Towards the end 
of his career we find it stated by Lieutenant G. Grover, 
R.E.,that "the Messrs. Green, Father and Son, have 
made between them some 930 ascents, in none of 
which have they met with any material accident or 



134 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

failure." This is wonderful testimony, indeed, and 
we may here add the fact that the father took up 
his own father, then at the age of eighty-three, in a 
balloon ascent of 1845, without any serious conse- 
quences. But it is time that some account should be 
given of a particular occasion which at least provided 
the famous aeronaut with an adventure spiced with 
no small amount of risk. It was on the 5th of July, 
1850, that Green ascended, with Rush as his com- 
panion, from Vauxhall, at the somewhat late hour of 
7.50 p.m., using, as always, the great Nassau balloon. 
The rate of rise must have been very considerable, 
and they presently record an altitude of no less than 
20,000 feet, and a temperature of 12 below freezing. 
They were now above the clouds, where all view of 
earth was lost, and, not venturing to remain long in 
this situation, they commenced a rapid descent, and 
on emerging below found themselves sailing down 
Sea Reach in the direction of Nore Sands, when they 
observed a vessel. Their chance of making land was, 
to say the least, uncertain, and Green, considering 
that his safety lay in bespeaking the vessel's assist- 
ance, opened the valve and brought the car down in 
the water some two miles north of Sheerness, the hour 
being 8.45, and only fifty-five minutes since the start. 
The wind was blowing stiffly, and, catching the hollow 
of the half-inflated balloon, carried the voyagers 
rapidly down the river, too fast, indeed, to allow of 
the vessel's overtaking them. This being soon ap- 
parent, Green cast out his anchor, and not without 
result, for it shortly became entangled in a sunken 
wreck, and the balloon was promptly " brought up," 




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THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 135 

though struggling and tossing in the broken water. 
A neighbouring barge at once put off a boat to the 
rescue, and other boats were despatched by H.M. 
cutter Fly, under Commander Gurling. Green and 
Rush were speedily rescued, but the balloon itself was 
too restive and. dangerous an object to approach with 
safety. At Green's suggestion, therefore, a volley of 
musketry was fired into the silk, after which it became 
possible to pass a rope around it and expel the gas. 
Green subsequently relates how it took a fortnight 
to restore the damage, consisting of sixty-two bullet 
rents and nineteen torn gores. 

Green's name will always be famous, if only for 
the fact that it was he who first adopted the use of 
coal gas in his calling. This, it will be remembered, 
was in 1821, and it should be borne in mind that at 
that time household gas had only recently been intro- 
duced. In point of fact, it first lighted Pall Mall in 
1805, and it was not used for the general lighting of 
London till 1814. 

We are not surprised to find that the great aero- 
naut at one time turned his attention to the construc- 
tion of models, and this with no inconsiderable success. 
A model of his was exhibited in 1840 at the Polytech- 
nic Institution, and is described in the Times as con- 
sisting of a miniature balloon of three feet diameter, 
inflated with coal gas. It was acted on by fans, 
which were operated by mechanism placed in the car. 
A series of three experiments was exhibited. First, 
the balloon being weighted so as to remain poised in 
the still air of the building, the mechanism was started, 
and the machine rose steadily to the ceiling. The 



136 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

fans were then reversed, when the model, equally 
gracefully, descended to the floor. Lastly, the balloon, 
with a weighted trail rope, being once more balanced 
in mid-air, the fans were applied laterally, when the 
machine would take a horizontal flight, pulling the 
trail rope after it, with an attached weight dragging 
along the floor until the mechanism had run down, 
when it again remained stationary. The correspon- 
dent of the Times continues, " Mr. Green states that 
by these simple means a voyage across the Atlantic 
may be performed in three or four days, as easily as 
from Vauxhall Gardens to Nassau." 

We can hardly attribute this statement seriously 
to one who knew as well as did Green how fickle are 
the winds, and how utterly different are the conditions 
between the still air of a room and those of the open 
sky. His insight into the difficulties of the problem 
cannot have been less than that of his successor, 
Coxwell, who, as the result of his own equally wide 
experience, states positively, " I could never imagine 
a motive power of sufficient force to direct and guide 
a balloon, much less to enable a man or a machine to 
fly." Even when modern invention had produced a 
motive power undreamed of in the days we are now 
considering, Coxwell declares his conviction that in- 
herent difficulties would not be overcome " unless 
the air should invariably remain in a calm state." 

It would be tedious and scarcely instructive to 
inquire into the various forms of flying machines 
that were elaborated at this period ; but one that 
was designed in America by Mr. Henson, and with 
which it was seriously contemplated to attempt to 



THE BALLOON IN THE SERVICE OF SCIENCE. 137 

cross the Atlantic, may be briefly described. In 
theory it was supposed to be capable of being sus- 
tained in the air by virtue of the speed mechanically 
imparted to it, and of the angle at which its advancing 
under surface would meet the air. The inventor 
claimed to have produced a steam engine of extreme 
lightness as well as efficiency, and for the rest his 
machine consisted of a huge aero-plane propelled by 
fans with oblique vanes, while a tail somewhat re- 
sembling that of a bird was added, as also a rudder, 
the functions of which were to direct the craft ver- 
tically and horizontally respectively. Be it here 
recorded that the machine did not cross the 
Atlantic. 

One word as to the instruments used up to this 
time for determining altitudes. These were, in general, 
ordinary mercurial barometers, protected in various 
ways. Green encased his instrument in a simple 
metal tube, which admitted of the column of mercury 
being easily read. This instrument, which is gener- 
ally to be seen held in his hand in Green's old por- 
traits, might be mistaken for a mariner's telescope. It 
is now in the possession of the family of Spencers, 
the grandchildren of his old aeronautical friend 
and colleague, and it is stated that with all his 
care the glass was not infrequently broken in a 
descent. 

Wise, with characteristic ingenuity, devised a 
rough-and-ready height instrument, which he claims 
to have answered well. It consisted simply of a 
common porter bottle, to the neck of which was joined 
a bladder of the same capacity. The bottle being 



138 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

filled with air of the density of that on the ground, 
and the bladder tied on in a collapsed state, the ex- 
pansion of the air in the bottle would gradually fill 
the bladder as it rose into the rarer regions of the at- 
mosphere. Experience would then be trusted to 
enable the aeronaut to judge his height from the 
amount of inflation noticeable in the bladder. 



CHAP1ER XII. 

HENRY COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 

MENTION should be made in these pages of a 
night sail of a hundred miles, boldly carried 
out in 1849 by M. Arban, which took the voyager 
from Marseilles to Turin fairly over the Alps. The 
main summit was reached at n p.m., when the 
" snow, cascades, and rivers were all sparkling under 
the moon, and the ravines and rocks produced masses 
of darkness which served as shadows to the gigantic 
picture." Arban was at one time on a level with the 
highest point of Mont Blanc, the top of which, stand- 
ing out well abovethe clouds, resembled " an immense 
block of crystal sparkling with a thousand fires." 

In London, in the year of the Great Exhibition, 
and while the building was still standing in Hyde 
Park, there occurred a balloon incident small in itself, 
but sufficient to cause much sensation at the crowded 
spot where it took place. The ascent was made from 
the Hippodrome by Mr. and Mrs. Graham in very 
boisterous weather, and, on being liberated, the balloon 
seems to have fouled a mast, suffering a considerable 
rent. After this the aeronauts succeeded in clearing 
the trees in Kensington Gardens, and in descending 
fairly in the Park, but, still at the mercy of the winds, 
they were carried on to the roof of a house in Arlington 
Street, and thence on to another in Park Place, where, 



Ho THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

becoming lodged against a stack of chimneys, they 
were eventually rescued by the police without any 
material damage having been done. 

But this same summer saw the return to England 
of Henry Coxwell, and for some years the story of 
the conquest of the air is best told by following his 
stirring career, and his own comments on aeronautical 
events of this date. We find him shortly setting about 
carrying out some reconnoitring and signalling ex- 
periments, designed to be of use in time of war. This 
was an old idea of his, and one which had, of course, 
beeng Ion entertained by others, having, indeed, been 
put to some practical test in time of warfare. It 
will be well to make note of what attention the matter 
had already received, and of what progress had been 
made both in theory and practice. 

We have already made some mention in Chapter 
IV. of the use which the French had made of balloons 
in their military operations at the end of the eighteenth 
and beginning of nineteenth the century. It was, in- 
deed, within the first ten years after the first inven- 
tion of the balloon that, under the superintendence 
of the savants of the French Academy, a practical 
school of aeronautics was established at Meudon. 
The names of Guyton, De Morveau (a distinguished 
French chemist), and Colonel Coutelle are chiefly 
associated with the movement, and under them some 
fifty students received necessary training. The prac- 
tising balloon had a capacitj^ of 17,000 cubic feet, and 
was inflated with pure hydrogen, made by what was 
then a new process as applied to ballooning, and which 
will be described in a future chapter. It appears that 



COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 141 

the balloon was kept always full, so that any oppor- 
tunity of calm weather would be taken advantage 
of for practice. And it is further stated that a balloon 
was constructed so sound and impervious that after 
the lapse of two months it was still capable, without 
being replenished, of raising into the air two men, 
with necessary ballast and equipment. The practical 
trial for the balloon in real service came off in June, 
1794, when Coutelle in person, accompanied by two 
staff officers, in one of the four bahoons which the 
French Army had provided, made an ascent to re- 
connoitre the Austrian forces at Fleurus. They 
ascended twice in one day, remaining aloft for some 
four hours, and, on their second ascent being sighted, 
drew a brisk fire from the enemy. They were un- 
harmed, however, and the successful termination of 
the battle of Fleurus has been claimed as due in large 
measure to the service rendered by that balloon. 

The extraordinary fact that the use of the balloon 
was for many years discontinued in the French 
Army is attributed to a strangely superstitious pre- 
judice entertained by Napoleon. Las Cases (in his 
"Private Life of Napoleon at St. Helena") relates 
an almost miraculous story of Napoleon's coronation. 
It appears that a sum of 23,500 francs was given to 
M. Garnerin to provide a balloon ascent to aid in the 
celebrations, and, in consequence, a colossal machine 
was made to ascend at 11 p.m. on December 16th 
from the front of Notre Dame, carrying 3,000 lights. 
This balloon was unmanned, and at its departure 
apparently behaved extremely well, causing universal 
delight. During the hours of darkness, however, it 



142 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

seems to have acquitted itself in a strange and well-nigh 
preternatural manner, for at daybreak it is sighted 
on the horizon by the inhabitants of Rome, and seen 
to be coming towards their city. So true was its 
course that, as though with predetermined purpose, 
it sails on till it is positively over St. Peter's and the 
Vatican, when, its mission being apparently fulfilled, 
it settles to earth, and finally ends its career in the 
Lake Bracciano. Regarded from whatever point of 
view, the flight was certainly extraordinary, and it 
is not surprising that in that age it was regarded as 
nothing less than a portent. Moreover, little details 
of the wonderful story were quickly endowed with 
grave significance. The balloon on reaching the ground 
rent itself. Next, ere it plunged into the water, it 
carefully deposited a portion of its crown on the tomb 
of Nero. Napoleon, on learning the facts, forbade 
that they should ever be referred to. Further, he 
thenceforward discountenanced the balloon in his 
army, and the establishment at Meudon was 
abandoned. 

There is record of an attempt of some sort that 
was made to revive the French military ballooning 
school in the African campaign of 1830, but it was 
barren of results. Again, it has been stated that the 
Austrians used balloons for reconnaissance, before 
Venice in 1849, an d yet again the same thing is re- 
lated of the Russians at the time of the siege of Sebas- 
topol, though Kinglake does not mention the cir- 
cumstance. In 1846 Wise drew up and laid before 
the American War Office an elaborate scheme for the 
redaction of Vera Cruz. This will be discussed in 



COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 143 

its due place, though it will be doubtless coneidered 
as chimerical. 

On the other hand, eminently practical were the 
experiments co-ordinated and begun to be put to an 
actual test by Mr. Coxwell, who, before he could duly 
impress his project upon the militaty authorities, had 
to make preliminary trials in private ventures. The 
earliest of these was at the Surrey Zoological Gardens 
in the autumn of 1854, an d it will be granted that 
much ingenuity and originality were displayed when 
it is considered that at that date neither wireless tele- 
graphy, electric flashlight, nor even Morse Code sig- 
nalling was in vogue. According to his announce- 
ment, the spectators were to regard his balloon, 
captive or free, as floating at a certain altitude over a 
beleaguered fortress, the authorities in communica- 
tion with it having the key of the signals and seeking 
to obtain through these means information as to the 
approach of an enemy. It was to be supposed that, 
by the aid of glasses, a vast distance around could be 
subjected to careful scrutiny, and a constant com- 
munication kept up with the authorities in the for- 
tress. Further, the flags or other signals were supposed 
preconcerted and unknown to the enemy, being formed 
by variations of shape and colour. Pigeons were also 
despatched from a considerable height to test their 
efficiency under novel conditions. The public press 
commented favourably on the performance and 
result of this initial experiment. 

Mr. Coxwell's account of an occasion when he had 
to try conclusions with a very boisterous wind, and 
of the way in which he negotiated a very trying and 



144 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

dangerous landing, will be found alike interesting and 
instructive. It was an ascent from the Crystal Palace, 
and the morning was fair and of bright promise out- 
wardly ; but Coxwell confesses to have disregarded 
a falling glass. The inflation having been progressing 
satisfactorily, he retired to partake of luncheon, 
entirely free from apprehensions ; but while thus occu- 
pied, he was presently sought out and summoned by 
a gardener, who told him that his balloon had torn 
away, and was now completely out of control, dragging 
his men about the bushes. On reaching the scene, 
the men, in great strength, were about to attempt a 
more strenuous effort to drag the balloon back against 
the wind, which Coxwell promptly forbade, warning 
them that so they would tear all to pieces. He then 
commenced, as it were, to " take in a reef," by gather- 
ing in the slack of the silk, which chiefly was catching 
the wind, and by drawing in the net, mesh by mesh, 
until the more inflated portion of the balloon was left 
snug and offering but little resistance to the gale, 
when he got her dragged in a direction slanting to the 
wind and under the lee of trees. 

Eventually a hazardous and difficult departure was 
effected, Mr. Chandler, a passenger already booked, 
insisting on accompanying the aeronaut, in spite of 
the latter's strongest protestations. And their first 
peril came quickly, in a near shave of fouling the bal- 
cony of the North Tower, which they avoided only 
by a prompt discharge of sand, the crowd cheering 
loudly as they saw how the crisis was avoided. The 
car, adds Mr. Coxwell in his memoirs, " was apparently 
trailing behind the balloon with a pendulous swing, 




AN EASY LANDING. 




Photos by the Author. 



AN AWKWARD LANDING. 



COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES: 145 

which is not often the case. ... In less than two 
minutes we entered the lower clouds, passing through 
them quickly, and noticing that their tops, which are 
usually of white, rounded conformation, were torn 
into shreds and crests of vapour. Above, there was 
a second wild-looking stratum of another order. We 
could hear, as we hastened on, the hum of the West 
End of London ; but we were bowling along, having 
little time to look about us, though some extra sand- 
bags were turned to good account, by making a bed 
of them at the bottom ends of the car, which we occu- 
pied in anticipation of a rough landing." 

As it came on to rain hard the voyagers agreed 
to descend, and Coxwell, choosing open ground, suc- 
ceeded in the oft-attempted endeavour to drop his 
grapnel in front of a bank or hedge-row. The balloon 
pulled up with such a shock as inevitably follows 
when flying at sixty miles an hour, and Mr. Coxwell 
continues : — " We were at this time suspended like 
a kite, and it was not so much the quantity of gas 
which kept us up as the hollow surface of loose silk, 
which acted like a falling kite, and the obvious game 
of skill consisted in not letting out too much gas to 
make the balloon pitch heavily with a thud that would 
have been awfully unpleasant ; but to jockey our 
final touch in a gradual manner, and yet to do it as 
quickly as possible for fear of the machine getting 
adrift, since, under the peculiar circumstances in which 
we were placed, it would have inevitably fallen with a 
crushing blow, which might have proved fatal. I 
never remember to have been in a situation when more 
coolness and nicety were required to overcome the 
K 



146 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

peril which here beset us ; while on that day the strong 
wind was, strange as it may sound, helping us to alight 
easily, that is to say as long as the grapnel held fast 
and the balloon did not turn over like an unsteady 
kite." Such peril as there was soon terminated with- 
out injury to either voyager. 

The same remark will apply to an occasion when 
Coxwell was caught in a thunderstorm, which he thus 
describes in brief : — " On a second ascent from Ches- 
terfield we were carried into the midst of gathering 
clouds, which began to flash vividly, and in the end 
culminated in a storm. There were indications, 
before we left the earth, as to what might be expected. 
The lower breeze took us in another direction as we 
rose, but a gentle, whirling current higher up got us 
into the vortex of a highly charged cloud. . . . We 
had to prove by absolute experience whether the 
balloon was insulated and a non-conductor. Beyond 
a drenching, no untoward incident occurred during a 
voyage lasting in all three-quarters of an hour." 

A voyage which Coxwell (referring, doubtless, to 
aerial travel over English soil only) describes as " be- 
ing so very much in excess of accustomary trips in 
balloons " will be seen to fall short of one memorable 
voyage of which the writer will have to give his own 
experiences. Some account, however, of what the 
famous aeronaut has to tell will find a fitting place 
here. 

It was an ascent on a summer night from North 
Woolwich, and on this occasion Coxwell was accom- 
panied by two friends, one being Henry Youens, who 
subsequently became a professional balloonist of con- 



COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES: 147 

siderable repute, and who at this time was an ardent 
amateur. It was half an hour before midnight when 
the party took their places, and, getting smartly away 
from the crowd in the gala grounds, shot over the 
river, and shortly were over the town of Greenwich 
with the lights of London well ahead. Then their 
course took them over Kennington Oval, Vauxhall 
Bridge, and Battersea, when they presently heard the 
strains of a Scotch polka. This came up from the 
then famous Gardens of Cremorne, and, the breeze 
freshening, it was but a few minutes later when they 
stood over Kingston, by which time it became a 
question whether, being now clear of London, they 
should descend or else live out the night and take 
what thus might come their way. This course, as 
the most prudent, as well as the most fascinating, 
was that which commended itself, and at that moment 
the hour of midnight was heard striking, showing that 
a fairly long distance had been covered in a short 
interval of time. 

From this period they would seem to have lost 
their way, and though scattered lights were sighted 
ahead, they were soon in doubt as to whether they 
might not already be nearing the sea, a doubt that was 
strengthened by their hearing the cry of sea-fowl. 
After a pause, lights were seen looming under the haze 
to sea-ward, which at times resembled water ; and 
a tail like that of a comet was discerned, beyond 
which was a black patch of considerable size. 

The patch was the Isle of Wight, and the tail the 
Water from Southampton. They were thus wearing 
more south and towards danger. They had no Davy 



H8 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

lamp with which to read their aneroid, and could only 
tell from the upward flight of fragments of paper 
that they were descending. Another deficiency in 
their equipment was the lack of a trail rope to break 
their fall, and for some time they were under un- 
pleasant apprehension of an unexpected and rude 
impact with the ground, or collision with some un- 
desirable object. This induced them to discharge 
sand and to risk the consequences of another rise 
into space, and as they mounted they were not re- 
assured by sighting to the south a ridge of lighter 
colour, which strongly suggested the coast line. 

But it was midsummer, and it was not long before 
bird life awakening was heard below, and then a streak 
of dawn revealed their locality, which was over the 
Exe, with Sidmouth and Tor Bay hard by on their 
left. Then from here, the land jutting seawards, they 
confidently traversed Dartmoor, and effected a safe, 
if somewhat unseasonable, descent near Tavistock. 
The distance travelled was considerable, but the dura- 
tion, on the aeronaut's own showing, was less than 
five hours. 

In the year 1859 the Times commented on the 
usefulness of military balloons in language that fully 
justified all that Coxwell had previously claimed for 
them. A war correspondent, who had accompanied 
the Austrian Army during that year, asks pertinently 
how it had happened that the French had been ready 
at six o'clock to make a combined attack against the 
Austrians, who, on their part, had but just taken up 
positions on the previous evening. The correspond- 
ent goes on to supply the answer thus : — " No 



COXWELL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 149 

sooner was the first Austrian battalion out of Vallegio 
than a balloon was observed to rise in the air from 
the vicinity of Monsambano — a signal, no doubt, for 
the French in Castiglione. I have a full conviction 
that the Emperor of the French knew overnight the 
exact position of every Austrian corps, while the 
Emperor of Austria was unable to ascertain the 
number or distribution of the forces of the 
allies." 

It appears that M. Godard was the aeronaut em- 
ployed to observe the enemy, and that fresh balloons 
for the French Army were proceeded with. 

The date w r as now near at hand when Coxwell, in 
partnership with Mr. Glaisher, was to take part in 
the classical work which has rendered their names 
famous throughout the world. Before proceeding to 
tell of that period, however, Mr. Coxwell has done 
well to record one aerial adventure, which, while but 
narrowly missing the most serious consequences, 
gives a very practical illustration of the chances in 
favour of the aeronaut under extreme circum- 
stances. 

It was an ascent at Congleton in a gale of wind, 
and the company of two passengers— Messrs. Pearson, 
of Lawton Hall — was pressed upon him. Everything 
foretold a rough landing, and some time after the start 
was made the outlook was not improved by the fact 
that the dreaded county of Derbyshire was seen ap- 
proaching ; and it was presently apparent that the 
spot on which they had decided to descend was faced 
by rocks and a formidable gorge. On this, Coxwell 
attempted to drop his grapnel in front of a stone wall, 



ISO THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

and so far with success ; but the wall went down, as 
also another and another, the wicker car passing, 
with its great impetus, clean through the solid ob- 
stacles, till at last the balloon slit from top to bottom. 
Very serious injuries to heads and limbs were sus- 
tained, but no lives were lost, and Coxwell himself, 
after being laid up at Buxton, got home on crutches. 



i 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS. 

IT was the year 1862, and the scientific world in 
England determined once again on attempting 
observational work in connection with balloons. There 
had been a meeting of the British Association at 
Wolverhampton, and, under their auspices, and with 
the professional services of Thomas Lythgoe, Mr. Cres- 
wick, of Greenwich Observatory, was commissioned to 
make a lofty scientific ascent with a Cremorne balloon. 
The attempt, however, was unsatisfactory ; and the 
balloon being condemned, an application was made 
to Mr. Coxwell to provide a suitable craft, and to un- 
dertake its management. The principals of the work- 
ing committee were Colonel Sykes, M.P., Dr. Lee, 
and Mr. James Glaisher, F.R.S., and a short confer- 
ence between these gentlemen and the experienced 
aeronaut soon made it clear that a mammoth balloon 
far larger than any in existence was needed for the 
work in hand. But here a fatal obstacle presented 
itself in lack of funds, for it transpired that the grant 
voted was only to be devoted to trial ascents. 

It was then that Mr. 'Coxwell, with characteristic 
enterprise, undertook, at his own cost, to build a suit- 
able balloon, and, moreover, to have it ready by 
Midsummer Day. It was a bold, as well as a gener- 
ous, offer ; for it was now March, and, according to 



152 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Mr. CoxwelPs statement, if silk were employed, the 
preparation and manufacture would occupy six months 
and cost not less than £2,000. The fabric chosen 
was a sort of American cloth, and by unremitting efforts 
the task was performed to time, and the balloon for- 
warded to Wolverhampton, its dimensions being 55 
feet in diameter, 80 feet in height from the ground, 
with a capacity of 93,000 cubic feet. But the best 
feature in connection with it was the fact that Mr. 
Glaisher himself was to make the ascents as scientific 
observer. 

No time was lost in getting to work, but twice 
over the chosen days were unsuitable, and it was not 
till July 17th that the two colleagues, of whom so 
much is to be told, got away at 9.30 a.m. with their 
balloon only two-thirds full, to allow of expansion to 
take place in such a lofty ascent as was contemplated. 
And, when it is considered that an altitude of five 
miles was reached, it will be granted that the scientific 
gentleman who was making his maiden ascent that 
day showed remarkable endurance and tenacity of 
purpose — the all-important essential for the onerous 
and trying work before him. At 9.56 the balloon had 
disappeared from sight, climbing far into the sky in 
the E.N.E. The story of the voyage we must leave 
in Mr. Glaisher's hands. Certain events, however, 
associated with other aeronauts, which had already 
happened, and which should be considered in connec- 
tion with the new drama now to be introduced, may 
fittingly here meet with brief mention. 

The trouble arising from the coasting across country 
of a fallen and still half-inflated balloon has alreadv 




A THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SUBURBS. 




Photos by the Author. 



CHELSEA HOSPITAL FROM ABOVE. 



SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS. 153 

been sufficiently illustrated, and needs little further 
discussion. It is common enough to see a balloon, 
when full and round, struggling restively under a 
moderate breeze with a score of men, and dragging 
them, and near a ton of sand-bags as well, about the 
starting ground. But, as has already been pointed 
out, the power of the wind on the globe is vastly in- 
creased when the silk becomes slack and forms a hollow 
to hold the wind, like a bellying sail. Various means 
to deal with this difficulty have been devised, one of 
these being an emergency, or ripping valve, in addi- 
tion to the ordinary valve, consisting of an arrange- 
ment for tearing a large opening in the upper part 
of one of the gores, so that on reaching earth the 
balloon may be immediately crippled and emptied 
of so large a quantity of gas as to render dragging 
impossible. Such a method is not altogether without 
drawbacks, one of these being the confusion liable to 
arise from there being more than one valve line to 
reckon with. To obviate this, it has been suggested that 
the emergency line should be of a distinctive colour. 

But an experiment with a safeguard to somewhat 
of this nature was attended with fatal consequence in 
the year 1824, A Mr. Harris, a lieutenant in the 
British Navy, ascended from the Eagle Tavern, City 
Road, with a balloon fitted with a contrivance of his 
own invention, consisting of a large hinged upper valve, 
having within it a smaller valve of the same descrip- 
tk\i, the idea being that, should the operation of the 
smaller outlet not suffice for any occasion, then the 
shutter of the larger opening might be resorted to, 
to effect a more liberal discharge of gas. 



154 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

Mr. Harris took with him a young lady, Miss 
Stocks by name, and apparently the afternoon — it 
being late May — was favourable for an aerial voyage ; 
for, with full reliance on his apparatus, he left his 
grapnel behind, and was content with such assistance 
as the girl might be able to render him. It was not 
long before the balloon was found descending, and 
with a rapidity that seemed somewhat to disturb the 
aeronaut ; and when, after a re-ascent, effected by a 
discharge of ballast, another decided downward ten- 
dency ensued, Mr. Harris clearly realised that some- 
thing was wrong, without, however, divining the 
cause. The story subsequently told by the girl was 
to the effect that when the balloon was descending 
the second time she was spoken to by her unfortunate 
companion in an anxious manner. " I then heard 
the balloon go c Clap ! clap ! ' and Mr. Harris said 
he was afraid it was bursting, at which I fainted, and 
knew no more until I found myself in bed. 5 ' A game- 
keeper tells the sequel, relating that he observed the 
balloon, which was descending with great velocity, 
strike and break the head of an oak tree, after which 
it also struck the ground. Hurrying up, he found the 
girl insensible, and Mr. Harris already dead, with his 
breast bone and several ribs broken. The explana- 
tion of the accident given by Mr. Edward Spencer 
is alike convincing and instructive. This eminently 
practical authority points out that the valve lines 
must have been made taut to the hoop at the time 
that the balloon was full and globular. Thus, sub- 
sequently, when from diminution of gas the balloon's 
shape elongated, the valve line would become strained 



SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS. 155 

and begin to open the valve, but in such a gradual 
manner as to escape the notice of the aeronaut. Miss 
Stocks, far from being unnerved by the terrible ex- 
perience, actually made three subsequent ascents in 
company with Mr. Green. 

It deserves mention that another disaster, equally 
instructive, but happily not attended with loss of life, 
occurred in Dublin in 1844 to Mr. Hampton, who about 
this time made several public and enterprising voya- 
He evidently was possessed of admirable nerve and 
decision, and did not hesitate to make an ascent 
from the Porto-Bello Gardens in face of strong wind 
blowing sea-wards, and in spite of many protestations 
from the onlookers that he was placing himself in 
danger. This danger he fully realised, more par- 
ticularly when he recognised that the headland on 
which he hoped to alight was not in the direction of 
the wind's course. Resolved, however, on gratifying 
the crowd, Mr. Hampton ascended rapidly, and then 
with equal expedition commenced a precipitate descent, 
which he accomplished with skill and without mishap. 
But the wind was still boisterous, and the balloon sped 
onward along the ground towards fresh danger un- 
foreseen, and perhaps not duly reckoned with. Ahead 
was a cottage, the chimney of which was on lire. 
A balloonist in these circumstances is apt to think 
little of a single small object in his way, knowing 
how many are the chances of missing or of success- 
fully negotiating any such obstacle. The writer on 
one occasion was, in the judgment of onlookers below, 
drifting in dangerous proximity to the awful Cwmavon 
stack in Glamorganshire, then in full blast ; yet it 



156 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

was a fact that that vast vent of flame and smoke 
passed almost unheeded by the party in the descending 
car. It may have been thus, also, with Mr. Hampton, 
who only fully realised his danger when his balloon 
blew up " with an awfully grand explosion," and he 
was reduced to the extremity of jumping for his life, 
happily escaping the mass of burning silk and ropes. 
The awful predicament of falling into the sea, 
which has been illustrated already, and which will 
recur again in these pages, was ably and successfully 
met by Mr. Cunningham, who made an afternoon 
ascent from the Artillery Barracks at Cleveclon ? 
reaching Snake Island at nightfall, where, owing to 
the gathering darkness, he felt constrained to open 
his valve. He quickly commenced descending into 
the sea, and when within ten feet of the water, turned 
the " detaching screw " which connected the car with 
the balloon. The effect of this was at once to launch 
him on the waves, but, being still able to keep control 
over the valve, he allowed just enough gas to remain 
within the silk to hold the balloon above water. He 
then betook himself to the paddles with which his 
craft was provided, and reached Snake Island with 
the balloon in tow. Here he seems to have found 
good use for a further portion of his very complete 
equipment ; for, lighting a signal rocket, he presently 
brought a four-oared gig to his succour from Ports- 
mouth Harbour. 

The teaching of the above incident is manifest 
enough. If it should be contemplated to use the 
balloon for serious or lengthened travel anywhere 
within possible reach of the sea-board — and this 



SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS. 157 

must apply to all parts of the British Isles — it must 
become a wise precaution, if not an absolute necessity, 
to adopt some form of car that would be of avail in 
the event of a fall taking place in the sea. Sufficient 
confirmation of this statement will be shortly afforded 
by a memorable voyage accomplished during the part- 
nership of Messrs. Glaisher and Cox well, one which 
would certainly have found the travellers in far less 
jeopardy had their car been convertible into a boat. 
We have already seen how essential Wise considered 
this expedient in his own bolder schemes, and it may 
further be mentioned here that modern air ships 
have been designed with the intention of making the 
water a perfectly safe landing. 

The ballooning exploits which, however, we have 
now to recount had quite another and more special 
object consistently in view — that of scientific inves- 
tigation ; and we would here premise that the proper 
appreciation of these investigations will depend on a 
due understanding of the attendant circumstances, 
as also of the constant characteristic behaviour of 
balloons, whether despatched for mere travel or re- 
search . 

First let us regard the actual path of a balloon in 
space when being manoeuvred in the way we read of 
in Mr. Glaisher's own accounts. This part is in most 
cases approximately indicated in that most attrac- 
tive volume of his entitled, " Travels in the Air," by 
diagrams giving a sectional presentment of his more 
important voyages ; but a little commonplace con- 
sideration may take the place of diagrams. 

It has been common to assert that a balloon poised 



1 58 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

in space is the most delicate balance conceivable. Its 
intrinsic weight must be exactly equal to the weight 
of the air it displaces, and since the density of the air 
decreases according to a fixed law, amounting, approxi- 
mately, to a difference in barometric reading of o.i 
inch for every 90 feet, it follows, theoretically, that if 
a balloon is poised at 1,000 feet above sea level, then 
it would not be in equilibrium at any other height, so 
long as its weight and volume remain the same. If it 
were 50 feet higher it must commence descending^ 
and, if lower, then it must ascend till it reaches its 
true level ; and, more than that, in the event of either 
such excursion mere impetus would carry it beyond 
this level, about which it would oscillate for a short 
time, after the manner of the pendulum. This is 
substantially true, but it must be taken in connection 
with other facts which have a far greater influence 
on a balloon's position or motion. 

For instance, in the volume just referred to it is 
stated by M. Gaston Tissandier that on one occasion 
when aloft he threw overboard a chicken bone, and, 
immediately consulting a barometer, had to admit on 
" clearest evidence that the bone had caused a rise 
of from twenty to thirty yards, so delicately is a bal- 
loon equipoised in the air." Here, without pausing 
to calculate whether the discharge of an ounce or so 
would suffice to cause a large balloon to ascend through 
ninety feet, it may be pointed out that the record can- 
not be trustworthy, from the mere fact that a free 
balloon is from moment to moment being subjected 
to other potent influences, which necessarily affect 
Its position in space. In daytime the sun's influence 



SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS. 159 

is an all-important factor, and whether shining bright!}/ 
or partially hidden by clouds, a slight difference in 
obscuration will have a ready and marked effect on 
the balloon's altitude. Again, a balloon in transit 
may pass almost momentarily from a warmer layer 
of air to a colder, or vice versa, the plane of demarca- 
tion between the two being very definite and abrupt, 
and in this case altitude is at once affected ; or, yet 
again, there are the descending and ascending currents, 
met with constantly and unexpectedly, which have 
to be reckoned with. 

Thus it becomes a fact that a balloon's vertical 
course is subjected to constant checks and vicissitudes 
from a variety of causes, and these will have to be 
duly borne in mind when we are confronted with 
the often surprising results and readings which are 
supplied by scientific observers. With regard to the 
close proximity, without appreciable intermingling, 
of widely differing currents, it should be mentioned 
that explorers have found in regions where winds of 
different directions pass each other that one air 
stream appears actually to drag against the surface 
of the other, as though admitting no interspace where 
the streams might mingle. Indeed, trustworthy ob- 
servers have stated that even a hurricane can rage over 
a tranquil atmosphere with a sharply defined surface 
of demarcation between calm and storm. Thus, to 
quote the actual words of Charles Darwin, than whom 
it is impossible to adduce a more careful witness, we 
find him recording how on mountain heights he met 
with winds turbulent and unconfined, yet holding 
courses " like rivers within their beds." 



160 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

It is in tracing the trend of upper air streams, to 
whose wayward courses and ever varying conditions 
we are now to be introduced, that much of our most 
valuable information has come, affecting the possi- 
bility of forecasting British wind and weather. It 
should need no insisting on that the data required 
by meteorologists are not sufficiently supplied by the 
readings of instruments placed on or near the ground, 
or by the set of the wind as determined by a vane 
planted on the top of a pole or roof of a building. The 
chief factors in our meteorology are rather those 
broader and deeper conditions which obtain in higher 
regions necessarily beyond our ken, until those regions 
are duly and diligently explored. 

Mr. Glaisher's estimate of the utility of the balloon 
as an instrument of research, formed at the conclu- 
sion of his aeronautical labours, has a special value 
and significance. Speaking with all the weight at- 
taching to so trained and eminent an observer, he 
declares, " The balloon, considered as an instrument 
for vertical exploration, presents itself to us under a 
variety of aspects, each of which is fertile in sugges- 
tions. Regarding the atmosphere as the great labora- 
tory of changes which contain the germ of future dis- 
coveries, to belong respectively, as they unfold, to 
the chemist and meteorologist, the physical relation 
to animal life of different heights, the form of death 
which at certain elevations waits to accomplish its 
destruction, the effect of diminished pressure upon 
individuals similarly placed, the comparison of moun- 
tain ascents with the experiences of aeronauts, are 
some of the questions which suggest themselves and 



SOME NOTEWORTHY ASCENTS 161 

faintly indicate enquiries which naturally ally them- 
selves to the course of balloon experiments. Suffi- 
ciently varied and important, they will be seen to 
rank the balloon as a valuable aid to the uses of philo- 
sophy, and rescue it from the impending degradation 
of continuing a toy fit only to be exhibited or to ad- 
minister to the pleasures of the curious and lovers of 
adventure," 

The words of the same authority as to the possible 
practical development of the balloon as an aerial 
machine should likewise be quoted, and will appear 
almost prophetic. " In England the subject of aero- 
station has made but little progress, and no valuable 
invention has arisen to facilitate travelling in the air. 
In all my ascents I used the balloon as I found it. 
The desire which influenced me was to ascend to the 
higher regions and travel by its means in furtherance 
of a better knowledge of atmospheric phenomena. 
Neither its management nor its improvement formed 
a part of my plan. I soon found that balloon trav- 
elling was at the mercy of the wind, and I saw no 
probability of any method of steering balloons being 
obtained. It even appeared to me that the balloon 
itself, admirable for vertical ascents, was not neces- 
sarily a first step in aerial navigation, and might pos- 
sibly have no share in the solution of the problem. 
It was this conviction that led to the formation of 
the Aeronautical Society a few years since under the 
presidency of the Duke of Argyll. In the number of 
communications made to this society it is evident 
that many minds are taxing their ingenuity to dis- 
cover a mode of navigating the air ; all kinds of 

L 



1 62 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

imaginary projects have been suggested, some show- 
ing great mechanical ingenuity, but all indicating 
the want of more knowledge of the atmosphere itself. 
The first great aim of this society is the connecting 
the velocity of the air with its pressure on plane sur- 
faces at various inclinations. 

" There seems no prospect of obtaining this rela- 
tion otherwise than by a careful series of experiments." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 

MR. GLAXSHER'S instrumental outfit was on an 
elaborate and costly scale, and the programme 
of experimental work drawn up for him by the Com- 
mittee of the British Association did not err on the side 
of too much modesty. In the first place the tempera- 
ture and moisture of the atmosphere were to be ex- 
amined. Observations on mountain sides had deter- 
mined that thermometers showed a decrease of i° F. 
for every 300 feet, and the accuracy of this law was 
particularly to be tested. Also, investigations were 
to be made as to the distribution of vapour below the 
clouds, in them, and above them. Then careful obser- 
vations respecting the dew point were to be under- 
taken at all accessible heights, and, more particularly, 
up to those heights where man may be resident or 
troops may be located. The comparatively new T 
instrument, the aneroid barometer, extremely valu- 
able, if only trustworthy, by reason of its sensibility, 
portability and safety, was to be tested and com- 
pared with the behaviour of a reliable mercurial baro- 
meter. Electrical conditions were to be examined ; 
the presence of ozone tested ; the vibration of a mag- 
net was again to be resorted to to determine how 
far the magnetism of the earth might be affected by 
height. The solar spectrum was to be observed ; 



1 64 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

air was to be collected at different heights for analysis ; 
clouds, also upper currents, were to be reported on. 
Further observations were to be made on sound, on 
solar radiation, on the actinic action of the sun, and 
on atmospheric phenomena in general. 

All this must be regarded as a large order wher e 
only a very limited number of ascents were con- 
templated, and it may be mentioned that some of the 
methods of investigation, as, for instance, the use of 
ozone papers, would now be generally considered ob- 
solete ; while the mechanical aspiration of thermo- 
meters by a stream of air, which, as we have pointed 
out, was introduced by Welsh, and which is strongly 
insisted on at the present day, was considered un- 
necessary by Mr. Glaisher in the case of wet and dry 
bulb hygrometers. The entire list of instruments, as 
minutely described by the talented observer, num- 
bered twenty- two articles, among which were such 
irreproachable items as a bottle of water and a pair 
of scissors. 

The following is a condensed account, gathered 
from Mr. Glaisher's own narrative, of his first ascent, 
which has been already briefly sketched in these pages 
by the hand of Mr. Coxwell. Very great difficulties 
were experienced in the inflation, which operation 
appeared as if it would never be completed, for a 
terrible W.S.W. wind was constantly blowing, and 
the movements of the balloon were so great and so 
rapid that it was impossible to fix a single instrument 
in its position before quitting the earth, a position 
of affairs which, says Mr. Glaisher, " was by no means 
cheering to a novice who had never before put his 






THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 165 

foot in the car of a balloon," and when, at last, at 9.42 
a.m., Mr. Coxwell cast off, there was no upward motion, 
the car simply dragging on its side till the expiration 
of a whole minute, when the balloon lifted, and in six 
minutes reached the first cloud at an altitude of 
4,467 feet. This cloud was passed at 5,802 feet, and 
further cloud encountered at 2,000 feet further aloft. 
Four minutes later, the ascent proceeding, the sun 
shone out brightly, expanding the balloon into a per- 
fect globe and displaying a magnificent view, which, 
however, the incipient voyager did not allow himself 
to enjoy until the instruments were arranged in due 
order, by which time a height of 10,000 feet was 
recorded. 

Mr. Glaisher apparently now had opportunity for 
observing the clouds, which he describes as very beau- 
tiful, and he records the hearing of a band of music 
at a height of 12,709 feet, which was attained in 
exactly twenty minutes from the start. A minute 
later the earth was sighted through a break in the 
clouds, and at 16,914 feet the clouds were far below, 
the sky above being perfectly cloudless, and of an 
intense Prussian blue. 

By this time Mr. Glaisher had received his first 
surprise, as imparted by the record of his instru- 
ments. At starting, the temperature of the air had 
stood at 59 . Then at 4,000 feet this w 7 as reduced 
to 45 ; and, further, to 26 at 10,000 feet, when it 
remained stationary through an ascent of 3,000 feet 
more, during which period both travellers added to 
their clothing, anticipating much accession of cold. 
However, at 15,500 feet the temperature had actually 



1 66 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

risen to 31°, increasing to no less than 42 at 19,500 
feet. 

Astonishing as this discovery was, [it was not 
the end of the wonder, for two minutes later, on 
somewhat descending, the temperature commenced 
decreasing so rapidly as to show a fall of 27 in 26 
minutes. As to personal experiences, Mr. Glaisher 
should be left to tell his own story. " At the height 
of 18,844 feet 18 vibrations of a horizontal magnet 
occupied 26.8 seconds, and at the same height my 
pulse beat at the rate of 100 pulsations per minute. 
At 19,415 feet palpitation of the heart became per- 
ceptible, the beating of the chronometer seemed very 
loud, and my breathing became affected. At 19,435 
feet my pulse had accelerated, and it was with in- 
creasing difficulty that I could read the instruments ; 
the palpitation of the heart was very perceptible ; 
the hands and lips assumed a dark bluish colour, but 
not the face. At 20,238 feet 28 vibrations of a hori- 
zontal magnet occupied 43 seconds. At 21,792 feet 
I experienced a feeling analogous to sea-sickness, 
though there v/as neither pitching nor rolling in the 
balloon, and through this illness I was unable to 
watch the instrument long enough to lower the tem- 
perature to get a deposit of dew. The sky at this 
elevation was of a very deep blue colour, and the 
clouds were far below us. At 22,357 feet I endeavoured 
to make the magnet vibrate, but could not ; it moved 
through arcs of about 20 , and then settled suddenly. 
" Our descent began a little after n a.m., Mr. Cox- 
well experiencing considerable uneasiness at our too 
close vicinity to the Wash. We came down quickly 



THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 167 

from a height of 16,300 feet to one of 12,400 feet in 
one minute ; at this elevation we entered into a dense 
cloud, which proved to be no less than 8,000 feet in 
thickness, and whilst passing through this the balloon 
was invisible from the car. From the rapidity of the 
descent the balloon assumed the shape of a parachute, 
and though Mr. Coxwell had reserved a large amount 
of ballast, which he discharged as quickly as possible, 
we collected so much weight by the condensation of 
the immense amount of vapour through which we 
passed that, notwithstanding all his exertions, we 
came to the earth with a very considerable shock, 
which broke nearly all the instruments. . . . The 
descent took place at Langham, near Oakham." 

Just a month later Mr. Glaisher, bent on a yet 
loftier climb, made his second ascent, again under 
Mr. Coxwell's guidance, and again from Wolver- 
hampton. Besides attending to his instruments he 
foun leisure to make other chance notes by the way.d 
He was particularly struck by the beauty of masses of 
cloud, which, by the time 12,000 feet were reached, 
were far below, " presenting at times mountain scenes 
of endless variety and grandeur, while fine dome-like 
clouds dazzled and charmed the eye with alternations 
and brilliant effects of light and shade." 

When a height of about 20,000 feet had been 
reached thunder was heard twice over, coming from 
below, though no clouds could be seen. A height of 
4,000 feet more was attained, and shortly after this 
Mr. Glaisher speaks of feeling unwell. It was diffi- 
cult to obtain a deposit of dew on the hygrometer, 
and the working of the aspirator became troublesome. 



1 68 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

While in this region a sound like that of loud thunder 
came from the sky. Observations were practically 
completed at this point, and a speedy and safe return 
to earth was effected, the landing being at Solihull, 
seven miles from Birmingham. 

It was on the 5th of September following that the 
same two colleagues carried out an exploit which will 
always stand alone in the history of aeronautics, 
namely, that of ascending to an altitude which, based 
on the best estimate they were able to make, they 
calculated to be no less than seven miles. Whatever 
error may have unavoidably come into the actual 
estimate, which is to some extent conjectural, is in 
reality a small matter, not the least affecting the fact 
that the feat in itself will probably remain without a 
parallel of its kind. In these days, when aeronauts 
attempt to reach an exceptionally lofty altitude, 
they invariably provide themselves with a cylinder of 
oxygen gas to meet the special emergencies of the 
situation, so that when regions of such attenuated 
air are reached that the action of heart and lungs 
becomes seriously affected, it is still within their power 
to inhale the life-giving gas which affords the greatest 
available restorative to their energies. Forty years 
ago, however, cylinders of compressed oxygen gas 
were not available, and on this account alone we 
may state without hesitation that the enterprise which 
follows stands unparalleled at the present hour. 

The filling station at Wolverhampton was quitted 
at 1.3 p.m., the temperature of the air being 59 on 
the ground, and falling to 41° at an altitude of 5,000 
feet, directly after which a dense cloud was entered, 



THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 169 

which brought the temperature down to 36 . At 
this elevation the report of a gun was heard. Here 
Mr. Glaisher attempted (probably for the first time 
in history) to take a cloud-scape photograph, the il- 
lumination being brilliant, and the plates with which 
he was furnished being considered extremely sensi- 
tive. The attempt, however, was unsuccessful. The 
height of two miles was reached in 19 minutes, and 
here the temperature was at freezing point. In six 
minutes later three miles was reached, and the ther- 
mometer was down to 18 . In another twelve minutes 
four miles was attained, with the thermometer record- 
ing 8°, and by further discharge of sand the fifth 
aerial milestone was passed at 1.50 p.m., i.e. in 47 
minutes from the start, with the thermometer 2° 
below zero. 

Mr. Glaisher relates that up to this point he had 
taken observations with comfort, and experienced no 
trouble in respiration, whilst Mr. Coxwell, in conse- 
quence of the exertions he had to make, was breath- 
ing with difficulty. More sand was now thrown out, 
and as the balloon rose higher Mr. Glaisher states 
that he found some difficulty in seeing clearly. But 
from this point his experiences should be gathered 
from his own words : — 

" About 1.52 p.m., or later, I read the dry bulb 
thermometer as minus five ; after this I could not see 
the column of mercmy in the wet bulb thermometer, 
nor the hands of the watch, nor the fine divisions on 
any instrument. I asked Mr. Coxwell to help me to 
read the instruments. In consequence, however, of 
the rotatory motion of the balloon, which had con- 



170 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

tinned without ceasing since leaving the earth, the 
valve line had become entangled, and he had to leave 
the car and mount into the ring to readjust it. I 
then looked at the barometer, and found its reading 
to be 9! inches, still decreasing fast, implying a height 
exceeding 29,000 feet. Shortly after, I laid my arm 
upon the table, possessed of its full vigour ; but on 
being desirous of using it I found it powerless — it 
must have lost its power momentarily. Trying to 
move the other arm, I found it powerless also. Then 
I tried to shake myself, and succeeded, but I seemed 
to have no limbs. In looking at the barometer my 
head fell over my left shoulder. I struggled and shook 
my body again, but could not move my arms. Get- 
ting my head upright for an instant only, it fell on my 
right shoulder ; then I fell backwards, my back rest- 
ing against the side of the car and my head on its 
edge. In this position my eyes were directed to Mr. 
Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body I seemed 
to have full power over the muscles of the back, and 
considerably so over those of the neck, but none over 
either my arms or my legs. As in the case of the arms, 
so all muscular power was lost in an instant from my 
back and neck. I dimly saw Mr. Coxwell, and en- 
deavoured to speak, but could not. In an instant 
intense darkness overcame me, so that the optic nerve 
lost power suddenly ; but I was still conscious, with 
as active a brain as at the present moment whilst 
writing this. I thought I had been seized with as- 
phyxia, and believed I should experience nothing more, 
as death would come unless we speedily descended. 
Other thoughts were entering my mind when I sud- 



THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 171 

denly became unconscious, as on going to sleep. I 
cannot tell anything of the sense of hearing, as no 
sound reaches the ear to break the perfect stillness 
and silence of the regions between six and seven miles 
above the earth. My last observation was made at 
1.54 p.m., above 29,000 feet. I suppose two or three 
minutes to have elapsed between my eyes becoming 
insensible to seeing fine divisions and 1.54 p.m., and 
then two or three minutes more to have passed till 
I was insensible, which I think, therefore, took place 
about 1.56 p.m. or 1.57 p.m. 

''Whilst powerless, I heard the words 'Tempera- 
ture ' and ' Observation,' and I knew Mr. Coxwell 
was in the car speaking to and endeavouring to rouse 
me — therefore consciousness and hearing had re- 
turned. I then heard him speak more emphatically, 
but could not see, speak, or move. I heard him again 
say, 'Do try, now do ! ' Then the instruments be- 
came dimly visible, then Mr. Coxwell, and very shortly 
I saw clearly. Next, I arose in my seat and looked 
around, as though waking from sleep, though not re- 
freshed, and said to Mr. Coxwell, ' I have been in- 
sensible.' He said, ' You have, and I too, very 
nearly.' I then drew up my legs, which had been 
extended, and took a pencil in my hand to begin 
observations. Mr. Coxwell told me that he had lost 
the use of his hands, which were black, and I poured 
brandy over them." 

Mr. Glaisher considers that he must have been 
totally insensible for a period of about seven minutes, 
at the end of which time the water reserved for the 
wet bulb thermometer, which he had carefully kept 



i/2 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

from freezing, had become a solid block of ice. Mr. 
CoxwelPs hands had become frostbitten, so that, 
being in the ring and desirous of coming to his friend's 
assistance, he was forced to rest his arms on the ring 
and drop down. Even then, the table being in the 
way, he was unable to approach, and, feeling insen- 
sibility stealing over himself, he became anxious to 
open the 4 valve. " But in consequence of having lost 
the use of his hands he could not do this. Ultimately 
he succeeded by seizing the cord in his teeth and dip- 
ping his head two or three times until the balloon took 
a decided turn downwards." Mr. Glaisher adds that 
no inconvenience followed his insensibility, and pre- 
sently dropping in a country where no conveyance 
of any kind could be obtained, he was able to walk 
between seven and eight miles. 

The interesting question of the actual height at- 
tained is thus discussed by Mr. Glaisher : — " I have 
already said that my last observation was made at 
a height of 29,000 feet. At this time, 1.54 p.m., we 
were ascending at the rate of 1,000 feet per minute, 
and when I resumed observations we were descending 
at the rate of 2,000 feet per minute. These two 
positions must be connected, taking into account the 
interval of time between, namely, thirteen minutes ; 
and on these considerations the balloon must have 
attained the altitude of 36,000 or 37,000 feet. Again, 
a very delicate minimum thermometer read minus 
11.9, and this would give a height of 37,000 feet. 
Mr. Coxwell, on coming from the ring, noticed that 
the centre of the aneroid barometer, its blue hand, 
and a rope attached to the car, were all in the same 



THE HIGHEST ASCENT ON RECORD. 173 

straight line, and this gave a reading of seven inches, 
and leads to the same result. Therefore, these inde- 
pendent means all lead to about the same elevation, 
namely, fully seven miles." 

So far we have followed Mr. Glaisher's account 
only, but Mr. Coxwell has added testimony of his own 
to this remarkable adventure, which renders the nar- 
rative more complete. He speaks of the continued 
rotation of the balloon and the necessity for mounting 
into the ring to get possession of the valve line. " I 
had previously," he adds, "taken off a thick pair of 
gloves so as to be the better able to manipulate the 
sand-bags, and the moment my unprotected hands 
rested on the ring, which retained the temperature of 
the air, I found that they were frost-bitten ; but I 
did manage to bring down with me the valve line, 
after noticing the hand of the aneroid barometer, and 
it was not long before I succeeded in opening the shut- 
ters in the way described by Mr. Glaisher. . . . Again, 
on letting off more gas, I perceived that the lower part 
of the balloon was rapidly shrinking, and I heard a 
sighing, as if it were in the network and the ruffled 
surface of the cloth. I then looked round, although 
it seemed advisable to let off more gas, to see if I 
could in any way assist Mr. Glaisher, but the table of 
instruments blocked the way, and I could not, with 
disabled hands, pass beneath. My last hope, then, 
was in seeking the restorative effects of a warmer 
stratum of atmosphere. . . . Again I tugged at the 
valve line, taking stock, meanwhile, of the reserve 
ballast in store, and this, happily, was ample. 

" Never shall I forget those painful moments of 



74 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

doubt and suspense as to Mr. Glaisher's fate, when 
no response came to my questions. I began to fear 
that he would never take any more readings. I could 
feel the reviving effects of a warmer temperature, 
and wondered that no signs of animation were notice- 
able. The hand of the aneroid that I had looked at 
was fast moving, while the under part of the balloon 
had risen high above the car. I had looked towards 
the earth, and felt the rush of air as it passed upwards, 
but was still in despair when Mr. Glaisher gasped 
with a sigh, and the next moment he drew himself 
up and looked at me rather in confusion, and said he 
had been insensible, but did not seem to have any 
clear idea of how long until he caught up his pencil 
and noted the time and the reading of the instruments." 
The descent, which was at first very rapid, was 
effected without difficulty at Cold Weston. 



CHAPTER XV. 

FURTHER SCIENTIFIC VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND 
COXWELL. 

EARLY in the following spring we find the same two 
aeronauts going aloft again on a scientific ex- 
cursion which had a termination nearly as sensational 
as the last. The ascent was from the Crystal Palace, 
and the intention being to make a very early start the 
balloon for this purpose had been partially filled 
overnight ; but by the morning the wind blew strongly, 
and, though the ground current would have carried 
the voyagers in comparative safety to the south- 
west, several pilots which were dismissed became, at 
no great height, carried away due south. On this 
account the start was delayed till i p.m., by which 
time the sky had nearly filled in, with only occasional 
gleams of sun between the clouds. It seemed as if 
the travellers would have to face the chance of cross- 
ing the Channel, and while, already in the car, they 
were actually discussing this point, their restraining 
rope broke, and they were launched unceremoniously 
into the skies. This occasioned an unexpected lurch 
to the car, which threw Mr. Glaisher among his instru- 
ments, to the immediate destruction of some of them. 
Another result of this abrupt departure was a 
very rapid rise, which took the balloon a height of 
3,000 feet in three minutes' space, and another 4,000 



176 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

feet higher in six minutes more. Seven thousand 
feet vertically in nine minutes is fast pace ; but the 
voyagers were to know higher speed yet that day, 
when the vertical motion was to be in the reverse 
and wrong direction. At the height now reached 
they were in cloud, and while thus enveloped the 
temperature, as often happens, remained practically 
stationary at about 32 , while that of the dew point 
increased several degrees. But, on passing out of 
the cloud, the two temperatures were very suddenly 
separated, the latter decreasing rapidly under a deep 
blue upper sky that was now without a cloud. Shortly 
after this the temperature dropped suddenly some 
8°, and then, during the next 12,000 feet, crept slowly 
down by small stages. Presently the balloon, reach- 
ing more than twenty thousand feet, or, roughly, four 
miles, and still ascending, the thermometer was taken 
with small fits of rising and falling alternately till an 
altitude of 24,000 feet was recorded, at which point 
other and more serious matters intruded themselves. 

The earth had been for a considerable time lost 
to view, and the rate and direction of recent progress 
had become merely conjectural. What might be tak- 
ing place in these obscured and lofty regions ? It 
would be as well to discover. So the valve was 
opened rather freely, with the result that the balloon 
dropped a mile in three minutes. Then another mile 
slower, by a shade. Then at 12,000 feet a cloud layer 
was reached, and shortly after the voyagers broke 
through into the clear below. 

At that moment Mr. Glaisher, who was busy with 
his instruments, heard Mr. Coxwell make an excla- 



VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND COXWELL; 177 

mation which caused him to look over the car, and 
he writes, " The sea seemed to be under us. Mr. 
Coxwell again exclaimed, ' There's not a moment to 
spare : we must save the land at all risks. Leave 
the instruments.' Mr. Coxwell almost hung to the 
valve line, and told me to do the same, and not to 
mind its cutting my hand. It was a bold decision 
opening the valve in this way, and it was boldly car- 
ried out." As may be supposed, the bold decision 
ended with a crash. The whole time of descending 
the four and -a quarter miles was a quarter of an hour, 
the last two miles taking four minutes only. For 
all that, there was no penalty beyond a few bruises 
and the wrecking of the instruments, and when land 
was reached there was no rebound ; the balloon 
simply lay inert hard by the margin of the sea. This 
terrific experience in its salient details is strangely 
similar to that already recorded by Albert Smith. 

In further experimental labours conducted during 
the summer of this year, many interesting facts stand 
out prominently among a voluminous mass of ob- 
servations. In an ascent in an east wind from the 
Crystal Palace in early July it was found that the upper 
limit of that wind was reached at 2,400 feet, at which 
level an air-stream from the north was encountered ; 
but at 3,000 feet higher the wind again changed to 
a current from the N.N.W. At the height, then, of 
little more than half a mile, these upper currents 
were travelling leisurely ; but what was more note- 
worthy was their humidity, which greatly increased 
with altitude, and a fact which may often be noted 
here obtruded itself, namely, when the aeronauts were 

M 



178 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

at the upper limits of the east wind, flat-bottomed 
cumulus clouds were floating at their level. These 
clouds were entirely within the influence of the upper 
or north wind, so that their under sides were in con- 
tact with the east wind, i.e. with a much drier air, 
which at once dissipated all vapour in contact with 
it, and thus presented the appearance of flat-bottomed 
clouds. It is a common experience to find the lower 
surface of a cloud mowed off flat by an east wind 
blowing beneath it. 

At the end of June a voyage from Wolverton 
was accomplished, which yielded remarkable results 
of much real value and interest. The previous night 
had been perfectly calm, and through nearly the whole 
morning the sun shone in a clear blue sky, without a 
symptom of wind or coming change. Shortly be- 
fore noon, however, clouds appeared aloft, and the 
sky assumed an altered aspect. Then the state of 
things quickly changed. Wind currents reached the 
earth blowing strongly, and the half-filled balloon 
began to lurch to such an extent that the inflation 
could only with difficulty be proceeded with. Fifty 
men were unable to hold it in sufficient restraint to 
prevent rude bumping of the car on the ground, 
and when, at length, arrangements were complete 
and release effected, rapid discharge of ballast alone 
saved collision with neighbouring buildings. 

It was now that the disturbance overhead came 
under investigation ; and, considering the short 
period it had been in progress, proved most remark- 
able, the more so the further it was explored. At 
4,000 feet they plunged into the cloud canopy, through 



VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND COX WELL; 179 

which, as it was painfully cold, they, sought to pene- 
trate intothe clear above, feeling confident of finding 
themselves, according to their usual experience, in 
bright blue sky, with the sun brilliantly shining. On 
the contrary, however, the region they now entered was 
further obscured with another canopy of cloud far up. 
It was while they were traversing this clear interval 
that a sound unwonted in balloon travel assailed 
their ears. This was the " sighing, or rather moan- 
ing, of the wind as preceding a storm." Rustling 
of the silk within the cordage is often heard aloft, 
being due to expansion of gas or similar cause ; but 
the aeronauts soon convinced themselves that what 
they heard was attributable to nothing else than the 
actual conflict of air currents beneath. Then they 
reached fog — a dry fog — and, passing through it, 
entered a further fog, but wetting this time, and 
within the next 1.000 feet they were once again in 
fog that was dry ; and then, reaching three miles 
high and seeing struggling sunbeams, they looked 
around and saw cloud everywhere, below, above, and 
far clouds on their own level. The whole sky had 
filled in most completely since the hours but recently 
passed, when they had been expatiating on the perfect 
serenity of the empty heavens. 

Still they climbed upwards, and in the next 2,000 
feet had entered further fog, dry at first, but turning 
wetter as they rose. At four miles high they found 
themselves on a level with clouds, whose dark masses 
and fringed edges proved them to be veritable rain 
clouds ; and, while still observing them, the fog 
surged up again and shut out the view, and by 



180 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

the time they had surmounted it they were no less 
than 23,000 feet up, or higher than the loftiest of 
the Andes. Even here, with cloud masses still piling 
high overhead, the eager observer, bent on further 
quests, was for pursuing the voyage ; but Mr. Cox- 
well interposed with an emphatic, " Too short of 
sand ! " and the downward journey had to be com- 
menced. Then phenomena similar to those already 
described were experienced again — fog banks (some- 
times wet, sometimes dry), rain showers, and cloud 
strata of piercing cold. Presently, too, a new wonder 
for a midsummer afternoon — a snow scene all around, 
and spicules of ice settling and remaining frozen on 
the coat-sleeve. Finally dropping to earth help- 
lessly through the last 5,000 feet, with all ballast 
spent, Ely Cathedral was passed at close quarters ; 
yet even that vast pile was hidden in the gloom that 
now lay over all the land. 

It was just a month later, and day broke with 
thoroughly dirty weather, a heavy sky, and falling 
showers. This was the day of all others that Mr. 
Glaisher was waiting for, having determined on mak- 
ing special investigations concerning the formation 
of rain in the clouds themselves. It had long been 
noticed that, in an ordinary way, if there be two rain 
gauges placed, one near the surface of the ground, 
and another at a somewhat higher elevation, then 
the lower gauge will collect most water. Does, then, 
rain condense in some appreciable quantity out of 
the lowest level ? Again, during rain, is the air 
saturated completely, and what regulates the quality 
of rainfall, for rain sometimes falls in large drops and 



VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND COXWELL. 181 

sometimes in minute particles ? These were ques- 
tions which Mr. Glaisher sought to solve, and there 
was another. 

Charles Green had stated as his conviction that 
whenever rain was falling from an overcast sky there 
would always be found a higher canopy of cloud over- 
hanging the lower stratum. On the day, then, which 
we are now describing, Mr. Glaisher wished to put 
this theory to the test ; and, if correct, then he de- 
sired to measure the space between the cloud layers, 
to gauge their thickness, and to see if above the second 
stratum the sun was shining. The main details of 
the ascent read thus : — 

In ten seconds they were in mist, and in ten seconds 
more were level with the cloud. At 1,200 feet they were 
out of the rain, though not yet out of the cloud. 
Emerging from the lower cloud at 2,300 feet, they 
saw, what Green would have foretold, an upper stratum 
of dark cloud above. Then they made excursions 
up and down, trying high and low to verify these 
conditions, and passing through fogs both wet and dry, 
at last drifting earthward, through squalls of wind 
and rain with drops as large as fourpenny pieces, 
to find that on the ground heavy wet had been cease- 
lessly falling. 

A day trip over the eastern suburbs of London 
in the same year seems greatly to have impressed 
Mr. Glaisher. The noise of London streets as 
heard from above has much diminished during 
the last fifteen years, probably owing to the 
introduction of wood paving. But, forty years ago, 
Mr. Glaisher describes the deep sound of London 



1 82 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

as resembling the roar of the sea, when at a mile 
high ; while at greater elevations it was heard as 
a murmuring noise. But the view must have been 
yet more striking than the hearing, for in one direc- 
tion the white cliffs from Margate to Dover were 
visible, while Brighton and the sea beyond were 
sighted, and again all the coast line up to Yarmouth ; 
yet the atmosphere that day, one might have thought, 
should have been in turmoil, by reason of a conflict 
of air-currents ; for, within two miles of the earth, 
the wind was from the east ; between two and three 
miles high it was exactly opposite, being from the 
west ; but at three miles it was N.E. ; while, higher, 
it was again directly opposite, or S.W. 

During his researches so far Mr. Glaisher had found 
much that was anomalous in the way of the winds, 
and in other elements of weather. He was destined 
to find much more. It had been commonly accepted 
that the temperature of the air decreases at the aver- 
age rate of i° for every 300 feet of elevation, and 
various computations, as, for example, those which 
relate to the co-efficient of refraction, have been 
founded on this basis ; but Mr. Glaisher soon estab- 
lished that the above generalisation had to be much 
modified. The following, gathered from his notes, 
is a typical example of such surprises as the aeronaut 
with due instrumental equipment may not unfre- 
quently meet with. 

It was the 12th of January, 1864, with an air- 
current on the ground from the S.E., of temperature 
41 , which very slowly decreased up to 1,600 feet, 
when a warm S.W. current was met with, and at 3,000 



VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND COXWELL; 183 

feet the temperature was 3J higher than on the earth. 
Above the S.W. stream the air became dry, and here 
the temperature decreased reasonably and consist- 
ently with altitude ; while fine snow was found 
falling out of this upper space into the warmer stream 
below. Mr. Glaisher discusses the peculiarity and 
formation of this stream in terms which will repay 
consideration. 

" The meeting with this S.W. current is of the 
highest importance, for it goes far to explain why 
England possesses a winter temperature so much 
higher than is due to her northern latitude. Our 
high winter temperature has hitherto been mostly 
referred to the influence of the Gulf Stream. With- 
out doubting the influence of this natural agent, it 
is necessary to add the effect of a parallel atmo- 
spheric current to the oceanic current coming from 
the same region — a true aerial Gulf Stream. This 
great energetic current meets with no obstruction in 
coming to us, or to Norway, but passes over the level 
Atlantic without interruption from mountains. It 
cannot, however, reach France without crossing Spain 
and the lofty range of the Pyrenees, and the effect 
of these cold mountains in reducing its temperature 
is so great that the former country derives but little 
warmth from it." 

An ascent from * Woolwich, arranged as near the 
equinox of that year as could be managed, supplied 
some further remarkable results. The temperature, 
which was 45 to begin with, at 4.7 p.m., crept down 
fairly steadily till 4,000 feet altitude was registered, 
when, in a region of warm fog, it commenced rising 



1 84 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

abruptly, and at 7,500 feet, in blue sky, stood at the 
same reading as when the balloon had risen only 
1,500 feet. Then, amid many anomalous vicissitudes, 
the most curious, perhaps, was that recorded late in 
the afternoon, when, at 10,000 feet, the air was ac- 
tually warmer than when the ascent began. 

That the temperature of the upper air commonly 
commences to rise after nightfall as the warmth 
radiated through day hours off the earth collects 
aloft, is a fact well known to the balloonist, and Mr. 
Glaisher carried out with considerable success a well- 
arranged programme for investigating the facts of 
the case. Starting from Windsor on an afternoon 
of late May, he so arranged matters that his departure 
from earth took place about an hour and three quarters 
before sunset, his intention being to rise to a definite 
height, and with as uniform a speed as possible to 
time his descent so as to reach earth at the moment 
of sun-down ; and then to re-ascend and descend 
again in a precisely similar manner during an hour 
and three-quarters after sunset, taking observations 
all the way. Ascending for the first flight, he left a 
temperature of 58 on the earth, and found it 55 at 
1,200 feet, then 43 at 3,600 feet, and 29J at the cul- 
minating point of 6,200 feet. Then, during the 
descent, the temperature increased, though not uni- 
formly, till he was nearly brushing the tops of the 
trees, where it was some 3 colder than at starting. 

It was now that the balloon, showing a little way- 
wardness, slightly upset a portion of the experiment, 
for, instead of getting to the neighbourhood of earth 
just at the moment of sunset, the travellers found 



VOYAGES OF GLAISHER AND COX WELL. 185 

themselves at that epoch 600 feet above the ground, 
and over the ridge of a hill, on passing which the bal- 
loon became sucked down with a down draught, neces- 
sitating a liberal discharge of sand to prevent con- 
tact with the ground. This circumstance, slight in 
itself, caused the lowest point of the descent to be 
reached some minutes late, and, still more unfor- 
tunate, occasioned the ascent which immediately 
followed to be a rapid one, too rapid, doubtless, to 
give the registering instruments a fair chance ; but 
one principal record aimed at was obtained at least 
with sufficient truth, namely, that at the culminating 
point, which again was 6,200 feet, the temperature 
read 35 , or about 6° warmer than when the balloon 
was at the same altitude a little more than an hour 
before. This comparatively warm temperature was 
practically maintained for a considerable portion of 
the descent. 

We may summarise the principal of Mr. Glaisher's 
generalisations thus, using as nearly as possible his 
own words : — 

" The decrease of temperature, with increase of 
elevation, has a diurnal range, and depends upon the 
hour of the day, the changes being the greatest at 
mid-day and the early part of the afternoon, and de- 
creasing to about sunset, when, with a clear sky, 
there is little or no change of temperature for several 
hundred feet from the earth ; whilst, with a cloudy 
sky, the change decreases from the mid-day hours 
at a less rapid rate to about sunset, when the decrease 
is nearly uniform and at the rate of i° in 2,000 feet. 

" Air currents differing in direction are almost 



1 86 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

always to be met with. The thicknesses of these were 
found to vary greatly. The direction of the wind 
on the earth was sometimes that of the whole mass 
of air up to 20,000 feet nearly, whilst at other times 
the direction changed within 500 feet of the earth. 
Sometimes directly opposite currents were met with." 
With regard to the velocity of upper currents, 
as shown by the travel of balloons, when the distances 
between the places of ascent and descent are measured, 
it was always found that these distances were very 
much greater than the horizontal movement of the 
air, as measured by anemometers near the ground. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 

BY this period a revival of aeronautics in the land of 
its birth had fairly set in. Since the last ascents 
of Gay Lussac, in 1804, already recorded, there had 
been a lull in ballooning enterprise in France, and no 
serious scientific expeditions are recorded until the 
year 1850, when MM. Baral and Bixio undertook 
some investigations respecting the upper air, which 
were to deal with its laws of temperature and hu- 
midity, with the proportion of carbonic acid present 
in it, with solar heat at different altitudes, with radia- 
tion and the polarisation of light, and certain other 
interesting enquiries. 

The first ascent, made in June from the Paris 
Observatory, though a lofty one, was attended with 
so much danger and confusion as to be barren of 
results. The departure, owing to stormy weather, 
was hurried and ill-ordered, so that the velocity in 
rising was excessive, the net constricted the rapidly- 
swelling globe, and the volumes of out-rushing gas 
half -suffocated the voyagers. Then a large rent oc- 
curred, which caused an alarmingly rapid fall, and 
the two philosophers were reduced to the necessity 
of flinging away all they possessed, their instruments 
only excepted. The landing, in a vineyard, was 
happily not attended with disaster, and within a 



1 88 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

month the same two colleagues attempted a second 
aerial excursion, again in wet weather. 

It would seem as if on this occasion, as on the 
former one, there was some lack of due management, 
for the car, suspended at a long distance from the 
balloon proper, acquired violent oscillations on leav- 
ing the ground, and dashing first against a tree, and 
then against a mast, broke some of the instruments. 
A little later there occurred a repetition on a minor 
scale of the aeronauts' previous mishap, for a rent 
appeared in the silk, though, luckily, so low down 
in the balloon as to be of small consequence, and 
eventually an altitude of some 19,000 feet was at- 
tained. At one time needles of ice were encountered, 
settling abundantly with a crackling sound upon their 
notebooks. But the most remarkable observation 
made during this voyage related to an extraordinary 
fall of temperature which, as recorded, is without 
parallel. It took place in a cloud mass, 15,000 feet 
thick, and amounted to a drop of from 15 to =39°. 

In 1867 M. C. Flammarion made a few balloon 
ascents, ostensibly for scientific research. His ac- 
count of these, translated by Dr. T. L. Phipson, is 
edited by Mr. Glaisher, and many of the experiences 
he relates will be found to contrast with those of 
others. His physical symptoms alone were remark- 
able, for on one occasion, at an altitude of appar- 
ently little over 10,000 feet, he became unwell, being 
affected with a sensation of drowsiness, palpitation, 
shortness of breath, and singing in the ears, which, 
after landing gave place to a " fit of incessant gaping," 
while he states that in later voyages, at but slightly 



SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 189 

greater altitudes, his throat and lungs became 
affected, and he was troubled with presence of 
blood upon the lips. This draws forth a footnote 
from Mr. Glaisher, which should be commended to 
all would-be sky voyagers. It runs thus : — " I have 
never experienced any of these effects till I had long 
passed the heights reached by M. Flammarion, and 
at no elevation was there the presence of blood." How- 
ever, M. Flammarion adduces, at least, one reassur- 
ing fact, which will be read with interest. Once, hav- 
ing, against the entreaties of his' friends, ascended 
with an attack of influenza upon him, he came down 
to earth again an hour or two afterwards with this 
troublesome complaint completely cured. 

It would seem as if the soil of France supplied the 
aeronaut with certain phenomena not known in 
England, one of these apparently being the occasional 
presence of butterflies hovering round the car when 
at considerable heights. M. Flammarion mentions 
more than one occasion when he thus saw them, and 
found them to be without sense of alarm at the bal- 
loon or its passengers. Again, the French observer 
seems seldom to have detected those opposite air- 
streams which English balloonists may frequently 
observe, and have such cause to be wary of. His 
words, as translated, are : — " It appears to me that 
two or more currents, flowing in different directions, 
are very rarely met with as we rise in the air, and 
when two layers of cloud appear to travel in opposite 
directions the effect is generally caused by the motion 
of one layer being more rapid than the other, when 
the latter appears to be moving in a contrary direc- 



i 9 Q THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

tion." In continuation of these experiences, he speaks 
of an occasion when, speeding through the air at 
the rate of an ordinary express train, he was drawn 
towards a tempest by a species of attraction. 

The French aeronaut's estimate of what consti- 
tutes a terrific rate of fall differs somewhat from that 
of others whose testimony we have been recording. 
In one descent, falling (without reaching earth, how- 
ever) a distance of 2,130 feet in two minutes, he 
describes the earth rising up with frightful rapidity, 
though, as will be observed, this is not nearly half 
the speed at which either Mr. Glaisher or Albert Smith 
and his companions were precipitated on to bare 
ground. Very many cases which we have cited go 
to show that the knowledge of the great elasticity 
of a well-made wicker car may rob a fall otherwise 
alarming of its terrors, while the practical certainty 
that a balloon descending headlong will form itself 
into a natural parachute, if properly managed, reduces 
enormously the risk attending any mere impact with 
earth. It will be allowed by all experienced aero- 
nauts that far worse chances lie in some awkward 
alighting ground, or in the dragging against danger- 
ous obstacles after the balloon has fallen. 

Many of M. Flammarion's experiments are re- 
markable for their simplicity. Indeed, in some cases 
he would seem to have applied himself to making 
trials the result of which could not have been seriously 
questioned. The following, quoting from Dr. Phip- 
son's translation, will serve as an example : — ■ 

" Another mechanical experiment was made in 
the evening, and renewed next day. I wished to verify 



SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 191 

Galileo's principle of the independence of simultane- 
ous motions. According to this principle, a body 
which is allowed to fall from another body in motion 
participates in the motion of the latter ; thus, if we 
drop a marble from the masthead of a ship, it preserves 
during its fall the rate of motion of the vessel, and 
falls at the foot of the mast as if the ship were still. 
Now, if a body falls from a balloon, does it also follow 
the motion of the latter, or does it fall directly to the 
earth in a line which is perpendicular to the point 
at which we let it fall ? In the first case its fall would 
be described by an oblique line. The latter was 
found to be the fact, as we proved by letting a bottle 
fall. During its descent it partakes of the balloon's 
motion, and until it reaches the earth is always seen 
perpendicularly below the car." 

An interesting phenomenon, relating to the form- 
ation of fog was witnessed by M. Flammarion in 
one of his voyages. He was flying low with a fast 
wind, and while traversing a forest he noticed here 
and there patches of light clouds, which, remaining 
motionless in defiance of the strong wind, continued 
to hang above the summits of the trees. The ex- 
planation of this can hardly be doubtful, being analo- 
gous to the formation of a night-cap on a mountain 
peak where warm moist air-currents become chilled 
against the cold rock surface, forming, momentarily, 
a patch of cloud which, though constantly being 
blown away, is as constantly re-formed, and thus is 
made to appear as if stationary. 

The above instructive phenomenon could hardly 
have been noticed save by an aeronaut, and the same 



192 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

may be said of the following. Passing in a clear sky 
over the spot where the Marne flows into the Seine, 
M. Flammarion notes that the water of the Marne, 
which, as he says, is as yellow now as it was in the 
time of Julius Caesar, does not mix with the green 
water of the Seine, which flows to the left of the cur- 
rent, nor with the blue water of the canal, which flows 
to the right. Thus, a yellow river was seen flowing 
between two distinct brooks, green and blue respec- 
tively. 

Here was optical evidence of the way in which 
streams of water which actually unite may continue 
to maintain independent courses. We have seen 
that the same is true of streams of air, and, where 
these traverse one another in a copious and complex 
manner, we find, as will be shown, conditions pro- 
duced that cause a great deadening of sound ; thus, 
great differences in the travel of sound in the silent 
upper air can be noticed on different da)/s, and, in- 
deed, in different periods of the same aerial voyage. 
M. Flammarion bears undeniable testimony to the 
manner in which the equable condition of the atmo- 
sphere attending fog enhances, to the aeronaut, the 
hearing of sounds from below. But when he gives 
definite heights as the range limits of definite sounds 
it must be understood that these ranges will be found 
to vary greatly according to circumstances. Thus, 
where it is statedthat a man 's voice may make 
itself heard at 3,255 feet, it might be added that 
sometimes it cannot be heard at a considerably less 
altitude ; and, again, the statement that the whistle 
of a locomotive rises to near 10,000 feet, and the noise 



SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 193 

of a railway train to 8,200 feet, should be qualified 
by an additional note to the effect that both may be 
occasionally heard at distances vastly greater. But 
perhaps the most curious observation of M. Flam- 
marion respecting sounds aloft relates to that of echo. 
To his fancy, this had a vague depth, appearing also 
to rise from the horizon with a curious tone, as if it 
came from another world. To the writer, on the 
contrary, and to many fellow-observers who have 
specially experimented with this test of sound, the 
echo has always appeared to come very much from 
the right place— the spot nearly immediately below 
— and if this suggested its coming from another 
world then the same would have to be said of all 
echoes generally. 

About the same period when M. Flammarion was 
conducting his early ascents, MM. de Fonvielle and 
Tissandier embarked on experimental voyages, which 
deserve some particular notice. Interest in the new 
revival of the art of aeronautics was manifestly be 
coming re-established in France, and though we find 
enthusiasts more than once bitterly complaining of 
the lack of financial assistance, still ballooning ex- 
hibitions, wherever accomplished, never failed to 
arouse popular appreciation. But enthusiasm was 
by no means the universal attitude with which the 
world regarded aerial enterprise. A remarkable and 
instructive instance is given to the contrary by M. 
W. de Fonvielle himself. 

He records an original ballooning exploit, or- 
ganised at Algiers, which one might have supposed 
would have caused a great sensation, and to which 
N 



T 9 4 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

he himself had called public attention in the local 
journals. The brothers Braguet were to make an 
ascent from the Mustapha Plain in a small fire balloon 
heated with burning straw, and this risky performance 
was successfully carried out by the enterprising 
aeronauts. But, to the onlooker, the most striking 
feature of the proceeding was the fact that while the 
Europeans present regarded the spectacle with curiosity 
and pleasure, the native Mussulmans did not appear 
to take the slightest interest in it ; " And this," re- 
marked de Fonvielle, " was not the first time that 
ignorant and fanatic people have been noted as mani- 
festing complete indifference to balloon ascents. 
After the taking of Cairo, when General Buonaparte 
wished to produce an effect upon the inhabitants, 
he not only made them a speech, but supplemented 
it with the ascent of a fire balloon. The attempt 
was a complete failure, for the French alone looked 
up to the clouds to see what became of the balloon." 

In the summer of 1867 an attempt was made to 
revive the long extinct Aeronautic Company of France, 
established b}^ De Guy ton. The undertaking was 
worked with considerable energy. Some forty or 
fifty active recruits were pressed into the service, a 
suitable captive balloon was obtained, thousands of 
spectators came to watch the evolutions, and many 
were found to pay the handsome fee of 100 francs 
for a short excursion in the air. For all this, the effort 
was entirely abortive, and the ballooning corps, as 
such, dropped out of existence. 

A little while after this de Fonvielle, on a visit 
to England, had a most pathetic interview with the 



SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 195 

veteran Charles Green, who was living in comfortable 
retirement at Upper Holloway. The grand old man 
pointed to a well-filled portfolio in the corner of his 
room, in which, he said, were accounts of all his travels, 
that would require a lifetime to peruse and put in 
order. Green then took his visitor to the end of the 
narrow court, and, opening the door of an outhouse, 
showed him the old Nassau balloon. " Here is my 
car," he said, touching it with a kind of solemn respect, 
" which, like its old pilot, now reposes quietly after 
a long and active career. Here is the guide rope 
which I imagined in former years, and which has been 
found very useful to aeronauts. . . . Now my life 
has past and my time has gone by, . . . Though my 
hair is white and my body too weak to help you, I 
can still give you my advice, and you have my hearty 
wishes for your future." 

It was but shortly after this, on March 26, 1870, 
that Charles Green passed away in the 85th year o 
his age. 

De Fonvielle's colleague, M. Gaston Tissandier, 
was on one occasion accidentally brought to visit 
the resting place of the earliest among aeronauts, 
whose tragic death occurred while Charles Green 
himself was yet a boy. In a stormy and hazardous 
descent Tissandier, under the guidance of M. Duruof, 
landed with difficulty on the sea coast of France, 
when one of the first to render help was a lightkeeper 
of the Griz-nez lighthouse, who gave the information 
that on the other side of the hills, a few hundred yards 
from the spot where they had landed, was the tomb 
of Pilatre de Rozier, whose tragical death has been 



196 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

recorded in an early chapter. A visit to the actual 
locality the next day revealed the fact that a humble 
stone still marked the spot. 

Certain scientific facts and memoranda collected 
by the talented French aeronaut whom we are fol- 
lowing are too interesting to be omitted. In the same 
journey to which we have just referred the voyagers, 
when nearly over Calais, w T ere witnesses from their 
commanding standpoint of a very striking pheno- 
menon of mirage. Looking in the direction of England, 
the far coast line was hidden by an immense veil of 
leaden-coloured cloud, and, following this cloud wall 
upward to detect where it terminated, the travellers 
saw above it a greenish layer like that of the surface 
of the sea, on which was detected a little black point 
suggesting a walnut shell. Fixing their eyes on this 
black spot, they presently discerned it to be a ship 
sailing upside down upon an aerial ocean. Soon 
after, a steamer blowing smoke, and then other vessels, 
added themselves to the illusory spectacle. 

Another wonder detected, equally striking though 
less uncommon, was of an acoustical nature, the 
locality this time being over Paris. The height of 
the balloon at this moment was not great, and, more- 
over, was diminishing as it settled down. Suddenly 
there broke in upon the voyagers a sound as of a con- 
fused kind of murmur. It was not unlike the distant 
breaking of waves against a sandy coast, and scarcely 
less monotonous. It was the noise of Paris that 
reached them, as soon as they sank to within 2,600 feet 
of the ground, but it disappeared at once when they threw 
out just sufficient ballast to rise above that altitude. 



SOME FAMOUS FRENCH AERONAUTS. 197 

It might appear to many that so strange and 
sudden a shutting out of a vast sound occurring 
abruptly in the free upper air must have been more 
imaginary than real, yet the phenomenon is almost 
precisely similar to one coming within the experience 
of the writer, and vouched for by his son and daughter, 
as also by Mr. Percival Spencer, all of whom were 
joint observers at the time, the main point of differ- 
ence in the two cases being the fact that the " region 
of silence " was recorded by the French observers 
as occurring at a somewhat lower level. In both 
cases there is little doubt that the phenomenon can 
be referred to a stratum of disturbed or non-homo- 
geneous air, which may have been very far spread, 
and which is capable of acting as a most opaque 
sound barrier. 

Attention has often been called in these pages 
to the fact that the action of the sun on an inflated 
balloon, even when the solar rays may be partially 
obscured and only operative for a few passing moments, 
is to give sudden and great buoyancy to the balloon. 
An admirable opportunity for fairly estimating the 
dynamic effect of the sun's rays on a silk globe, whose 
fabric was half translucent, was offered to the French 
aeronauts when their balloon was spread on the grass 
under repair, and for this purpose inflated with the 
circumambient air by means of a simple rotatory fan. 
The sun coming out, the interior of the globe quickly 
became suffocating, and it was found that, while the 
external temperature recorded 77 , that of the in- 
terior was in excess of 91 . 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE. 

A BALLOON which has become famous in history 
was frequently used in the researches of the 
French aeronauts mentioned in our last chapter. This 
was known as " The Giant," the creation of M. Nadar, 
a progressive and practical aeronaut, who had always 
entertained ambitious ideas about aerial travel. 

M. Nadar had been editor of L Aeronaut, a French 
journal devoted to the advancement of aerostation 
generally. He had also strongly expressed his own 
views respecting the possibility of constructing air 
ships that should be subject to control and guidance 
when winds were blowing. His great contention was 
that the dirigible air ship would, like a bird, have 
to be made heavier than the medium in which it was 
to fly. As he put it, a balloon could never properly 
become a vessel. It would only be a buoy. In spite 
of any number of accessories, paddles, wings, fans, 
sails, it could not possibly prevent the wind from 
bodily carrying away the whole concern. 

After this strong expression of opinion, it may 
appear somewhat strange that such a bold theoriser 
should at once have set himself to construct the largest 
gas balloon on record. Such, however, was the case, 
and the reason urged was not otherwise than plausible. 
For, seeing that a vast sum of money would be needed 
to put his theories into practice, M. Nadar conceived 



ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE** 199 

the idea of first constructing a balloon so unique 
and unrivalled that it should compel public attention 
in a way that no other balloon had done before, and so 
by popular exhibitions bring to his hand such sums 
as he required. A proper idea of the scale of this 
huge machine can be easily gathered. The largest 
balloons at present exhibited in this country are 
seldom much in excess of 50,000 cubic feet capacity. 
Compared with these the " Great Nassau Balloon," 
built by Charles Green, which has been already suf- 
ficiently described, was a true leviathan ; while Cox- 
well's " Mammoth " was larger yet, possessing a 
content, when fully inflated, of no less than 93,000 
cubic feet, and measuring over 55 feet in diameter. 
This, however, as will be seen, was but a mere pigmy 
when compared with " The Giant," which, measuring 
some 74 feet in diameter, possessed the prodigious 
capacity of 215,000 cubic feet. 

But the huge craft possessed another novelty 
besides that of exceptional size. It was provided 
with a subsidiary balloon, called the " Compensator," 
and properly the idea of M. L. Godard, the function 
of which was to receive any expulsion of gas in ascend- 
ing, and thus to prevent loss during any voyage. The 
specification of this really remarkable structure may 
be taken from M. Nadar's own description. The 
globe in itself was for greater strength virtually double, 
consisting of two identical balloons, one within the 
other, each made of white silk of the finest quality, 
and costing about 5s. 4d. per yard. No less than 
22,000 yards of this silk were required, and the sew- 
ing up of the gores was entirely done by hand. The 



200 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

small compensating balloon was constructed to have 
a capacity of about 3,500 cubic feet, and the whole 
machine, when fully inflated, was calculated to lift 
4I tons. With this enormous margin of buoyancy, 
M. Nadar determined on making the car of propor- 
tionate and unparalleled dimensions, and of most 
elaborate design. It contained two floors, of which 
the upper one was open, the height of all being nearly 
7 feet, with a width of about 13 feet. Then what 
was thought to be due provision was made for pos- 
sible emergencies. It might descend far from help 
or habitations, therefore means were provided for 
attaching wheels and axles. Again, the chance of 
rough impact had to be considered, and so canes, 
to act as springs, were fitted around and below. Once 
again, there was the contingency of immersion to 
be reckoned with ; therefore there were provided 
buoys and water-tight compartments. Further than 
this, unusual luxuries were added, for there were cabins, 
one for the captain at one end, and another with three 
berths for passengers at the other. Nor was this all, 
for there was, in addition, a larder, a lavatory, a 
photographic room, and a printing office. It remains 
now only to tell the tale of how this leviathan of the 
air acquitted itself. 

The first ascent was made on the 4th of October, 
1853, from the Champ de Mars, and no fewer than 
fifteen living souls were launched together into the 
sky. Of these Nadar was captain, with the brothers 
Godard lieutenants. There was the Prince de Sayn- 
Wittgenstein ; there was the Count de St. Martin ; 
above all, there was a lady, the Princess de la Tour 






ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE: 201 

d'Auvergne. The balloon came to earth at 9 o'clock 
at night near Meaux, and, considering all the pro- 
vision which had been made to guard against rough 
landing, it can hardly be said that the descent was 
a happy one. It appears that the car dragged on 
its side for nearly a mile, and the passengers, far from 
finding security in the seclusion of the inner chambers, 
were glad to clamber out above and cling, as best 
they might, to the ropes. 

Many of the party were bruised more or less 
severely, though no one was seriously injured, and it 
was reported that such fragile articles as crockery, 
cakes, confectionery, and wine bottles to the number of 
no less than thirty-seven, were afterwards discovered to 
be intact, and received due attention. It is further 
stated that the descent was decided on contrary to 
the wishes of the captain, but in deference to the 
judgment of the experienced MM. Godard, it being 
apparently their conviction that the balloon was 
heading out to sea, whereas, in reality, they were 
going due east, " with no sea at all before them nearer 
than the Caspian." 

This was certainly an unpropitious trial trip for 
the vessel that had so ambitiously sought dominion 
over the air, and the next trial, which was embarked 
upon a fortnight later, Sunday, October 18th, was 
hardly less unfortunate. Again the ascent was from 
the Champ de Mars, and the send-off lacked nothing 
in the way of splendour and circumstance. The 
Emperor was present, for two hours an interested 
observer of the proceedings ; the King of Greece also 
attended, and even entered the car, while another 



202 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

famous spectator was the popular Meyerbeer. " The 
Giant " first gave a preliminary demonstration of 
his power by taking up, for a cable's length, a living 
freight of some thirty individuals, and then, at 5.10 
p.m., started on its second free voyage, with nine 
souls on board, among them again being a lady, in 
the person of Madame Nadar. For nearly twenty- 
four hours no tidings of the voyage were forthcoming, 
when a telegram was received stating that the balloon 
had passed over Compiegne, more than seventy miles 
from Paris, at 8.30 on the previous evening, and 
that Nadar had dropped the simple message, " All 
goes well ! " A later telegram the same evening 
stated that the balloon had at midnight on Sunday 
passed the Belgian frontier over Erquelines, where 
the Custom House officials had challenged the tra- 
vellers without receiving an answer. 

But eight-and-forty hours since the start went by 
without further news, and excitement in Paris grew 
intense. When the news came at last it was from 
Bremen, to say that Nadar's balloon had descended 
at Eystrup, Hanover, with five of the passengers 
injured, three seriously. These three were M. Nadar, 
his wife, and M. St. Felix. M. Nadar, in communi- 
cating this intelligence, added, " We owe our lives 
to the courage of Jules Godard." The following 
signed testimony of M. Louis Godard is forthcoming, 
and as it refers to an occasion which is among the 
most thrilling in aerial adventure, it may well be given 
without abridgment. It is here transcribed almost 
literatim from Mr. H. Turner's valuable work, " Astra 
Castra." 



ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE. 203 

" The Giant," after passing Lisle, proceeded in 
the direction of Belgium, where a fresh current, 
coming from the Channel, drove it over the marshes 
of Holland. It was there that M. Louis Godard pro- 
posed to descend to await the break of day, in order 
to recognise the situation and again to depart. It 
was one in the morning, the night was dark, but the 
weather calm. Unfortunately, this advice, supported 
by long experience, was not listened to. "The 
Giant " went on its way, and then Louis Godard no 
longer considered himself responsible for the conse- 
quences of the voyage. 

The balloon coasted the Zuyder Zee, and then 
entered Hanover. The sun began to appear, drying 
the netting and sides of the balloon, wet from its 
passage through the clouds, and produced a dilata- 
tion which elevated the aeronauts to 15,000 feet. At 
eight o'clock the wind, blowing suddenly from the 
west, drove the balloon in a right line towards the 
North Sea. It was necessary, at all hazards, to 
effect a descent. This was a perilous affair, as the 
wind was blowing with extreme violence. The brothers 
Godard assisted, by M. Gabriel, opened the valve 
and got out the anchors ; but, unfortunately, the 
horizontal progress of the balloon augmented from 
second to second. The first obstacle which the 
anchors encountered was a tree ; it was instantly 
uprooted, and dragged along to a second obstacle, a 
house, whose roof was carried off. At this moment 
the two cables of the anchors were broken without 
the voyagers being aware of it. Foreseeing the suc- 
cessive shocks that were about to ensue — the moment 



204 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

was critical — the least forget fulness might cause death. 
To add to the difficulty, the balloon's inclined posi- 
tion did not permit of operating the valve, except 
on the hoop. 

At the request of his brother, Jules Godard at- 
tempted the difficult work of climbing to this hoop, 
and, in spite of his known agility, he was obliged several 
times to renew the effort. Alone, and not being able 
to detach the cord, M. Louis Godard begged M. Yon 
to join his brother on the hoop. The two made them- 
selves masters of the rope, which they passed to Louis 
Godard. The latter secured it firmly, in spite of the 
shocks he received. A violent impact shook the car and 
M. de St. Felix became entangled under the car as it 
was ploughing the ground. It was impossible to render 
him any assistance ; notwithstanding, Jules Godard, 
stimulated by his brother, leapt out to attempt moor- 
ing the balloon to the trees by means of the ropes. 
M. Montgolfier, entangled in the same manner, was 
re-seated in time and saved by Louis Godard. 

At this moment others leapt out and escaped with 
a few contusions. The car, dragged along by the 
balloon, broke trees more than half a yard in diameter 
and overthrew everything that opposed it. 

Louis Godard made M. Yon leap out of the car 
to assist Madame Nadar ; but a terrible shock threw 
out MM. Nadar, Louis Godard, and Montgolfier, the 
two first against the ground, the third into the water. 
Madame Nadar, in spite of the efforts of the voyagers, 
remained the last, and found herself squeezed between 
the ground and the car, which had fallen upon her. More 
than twenty minutes elapsed before it was possible 



ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE. 205 

to disentangle her, in spite of the most vigorous efforts 
on the part of everyone. It was at this moment the 
balloon burst and, like a furious monster, destroved 
everything around it. Immediately afterwards they 
ran to the assistance of M. de St. Felix, who had been 
left behind, and whose face was one ghastly wound, 
and covered with blood and mire. He had an arm 
broken, his chest grazed and bruised. 

After this accident, though a creditable future 
lay in store for " The Giant," its monstrous and un- 
wieldy car was condemned, and presently removed 
to the Crystal Palace, where it was daily visited by 
large crowds. 

It is impossible to dismiss this brief sketch of 
French balloonists of this period without pajnng some 
due tribute to M. Depuis Delcourt, equally well known 
in the literary and scientific world, and regarded in 
his own country as a father among aeronauts. Born 
in 1802, his recollection went back to the time of 
Montgolfier and Charles, to the feats of Garnerin, and 
the death of Madame Blanchard. He established the 
Aerostatic and Meteorological Society of France, and 
was the author of many works, as well as of a journal 
dealing with aerial navigation. He closed a life 
devoted to the pursuit and advancement of aerosta- 
tion in April, 1864. 

Before very long, events began shaping themselves 
in the political world which were destined to bring 
the balloon in France into yet greater prominence. 
But we should mention that already its capabilities 
in time of war to meet the requirements of military 
operations had been scientifically and systematically 



THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

tested, and of these trials it will be necessary to speak 
without further delay. 

Reference has already been made in these pages 
to a valuable article contributed in 1862 by Lieutenant 
G. Grover, R.E., to the Royal Engineers' papers. 
From this report it would appear that the balloon, 
as a means of reconnoitring, was employed with 
somewhat uncertain success at the battle of Solferino, 
the brothers Godard being engaged as aeronauts. 
The balloon used was a Montgolfier, or fire balloon, 
and, in spite of its ready inflation, MM. Godard con- 
sidered it, from the difficulty of maintaining within 
it the necessary degree of buoyancy, far inferior to 
the gas inflated balloon. On the other hand, the 
Austrian Engineer Committee were of a contrary 
opinion. It would seem that no very definite con- 
clusions had been arrived at with respect to the use 
and value of the military balloon up to the time of 
the commencement of the American War in 1862. 

It was now that the practice of ballooning be- 
came a recognised department of military manoeuvres, 
and a valuable report appears in the above-mentioned 
papers from the pen of Captain F. Beaumont, R.E. 
According to this officer, the Americans made trial of 
two different balloons, both hydrogen inflated, one 
having a capacity of about 13,000 cubic feet, and 
the other about twice as large. It was this latter 
that the Americans used almost exclusively, it being 
found to afford more steadiness and safety, and to be 
the means, sometimes desirable, of taking up more 
than two persons. The difficulty of sufficient gas 
supply seems to have been well met. Two generators 



ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE. 207 

sufficed, these being " nothing more than large tanks 
of wood, acid-proof inside, and of sufficient strength 
to resist the expansive action of the gas ; they were 
provided with suitable stopcocks for regulating the 
admission of the gas, and with manhole covers for 
introducing the necessary materials." The gas, as 
evolved, being made to pass successively through two 
vessels containing lime water, was delivered cool 
and purified into the balloon, and as the sulphuric 
acid needed for the process was found sufficiently 
cheap, and scrap iron also required was readily 
come by, it would seem that practical difficulties 
in the field were reduced to a minimum. 

According to Captain Beaumont, the difficulties 
which might have been expected from windy weather 
were not considerable, and twenty-five or thirty men 
sufficed to convey the balloon easily, when inflated, 
over all obstacles. The transport of the bulk of the 
rest of the apparatus does not read, on paper, a very 
serious matter. The two generators required four 
horses each, and the acid and balloon carts as many 
more. Arrived on the scene of action, the drill 
itself was a simple matter. A squad of thirty men 
under an officer sufficed to get the balloon into posi- 
tion, and to arrange the ballastjgo that, with all in, 
there was a lifting power of some thirty pounds. 
Then, at the word of command, the men together 
drop the car, and seize the three guy ropes, of which 
one is made to pass through a snatch block firmly 
secured. The guy ropes are then payed out according 
to the directions of the aeronaut, as conveyed through 
the officer. 



208 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

The balloon accompanied the army's advance 
where its services could be turned to the greatest 
advantage. It was employed in making continual 
ascents, and furnishing daily reports to General 
M'Clellan, and it was supposed that by constant 
observation the aeronaut could, at a glance, assure 
himself that no change had taken place in the occupa- 
tion of the country. Captain Beaumont, speaking, 
be it remembered, of the military operations and 
manoeuvres then in vogue, declared that earthworks 
could be seen even at the distance of eight miles, 
though their character could not be distinctly stated. 
Wooded country was unfitted for balloon reconnais- 
sance, and only in a plain could any considerable body 
of troops be made known. Then follows such a 
description as one would be expecting to find : — 

"During the battle of Hanover Court House, 
which was the first engagement of importance before 
Richmond, I happened to be close to the balloon 
when the heavy firing began. The wind was rather 
high ; but I was anxious to see, if possible, what was 
going on, and I went up with the father of the aero- 
naut. The balloon was, however, short of gas, and 
as the wind was high we were obliged to come down. 
I then went up by myself, the diminished weight 
giving increased steadiness ; but it was not considered 
safe to go more than 500 feet, on account of the un- 
settled state of the weather. The balloon was very 
unsteady, so much so that it was difficult to fix my 
sight on any particular object. At that distance I 
could see nothing of the fight." 

Following this is another significant sentence : — 




Photo by W, Gregory & Co., Strand. 



A MILITARY 
CAPTIVE BALLOON. 



:. 



ADVENTURE AND ENTERPRISE; 209 

" In the case of a siege, I am inclined to think that a 
balloon reconnaissance would be of less value than in 
almost any other case where a reconnaissance can 
be required ; but, even here, if useless, it is, at any 
rate, also harmless. I once saw the fire of artillery 
directed from the balloon ; this became necessary, 
as it was only in this way that the picket which it was 
desired to dislodge could be seen. However, I can- 
not say that I thought the fire of artillery was of 
much effect against the unseen object ; not that this 
was the fault of the balloon, for had it not told the 
artillerists which way the shots were falling their 
fire would have been more useless still." 

It will be observed that at this time photography 
had not been adopted as an adjunct to military bal- 
looning. 

Full details have been given in this chapter of 
the monster balloon constructed by M. Nadar ; but 
in 1864 Eugene Godard built one larger yet of the 
Montgolfier type. Its capacity was nearly half a 
million cubic feet, while the stove which inflated it 
stood 18 feet high, and weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. 
Two free ascents were made without mishap from 
Cremorne Gardens. Five years later Ashburnham 
Park was the scene of captive ascents made with 
another mammoth balloon, containing no less than 
350,000 cubic feet of pure hydrogen, and capable of 
lifting n tons. It was built at a cost of 28,000 francs 
by M. Giffard, the well-known engineer and inventor 
of the injector for feeding steam engines. 

These aerial leviathans do not appear to have 
been, in any true sense, successful. 
o 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE BALLOON IN THE SIECxE OF PARIS. 

WITHIN a few months of the completion of the 
period covered by the records of the last 
chapter, France was destined to receive a more urgent 
stimulus than ever before to develop the resources of 
ballooning, and, in hot haste, to turn to the most 
serious and practical account all the best resources of 
aerial locomotion. The stern necessity of war was 
upon her, and during four months the sole mode of 
exit from Paris— nay, the only possible means of 
conveying a simple message beyond the boundary of 
her fortifications — was by balloon. 

Hitherto, from the very inception of the art, 
from the earliest Montgolfier with its blazing furnace, 
the balloon had gone up from the gay capital under 
every variety of circumstance — for pleasure, for ex- 
hibition, for scientific research. It was now put in 
requisition to mitigate the emergency occasioned by 
the long and close investment of the city by the 
Prussian forces. 

Recognising, at an early stage, the possibilities 
of the balloon, an enquiry was at once made by the 
military authorities as to the existing resources of 
the city, when it was quickly discovered that, with 
certain exceptions to be presently mentioned, such 
balloons as were in existence within the walls were 



THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 211 

either unserviceable or inadequate for the work 
that was demanded of them. Thereupon, with ad- 
mirable promptness and enterprise, it was forthwith 
determined to organise the building and equipment 
of a regular fleet of balloons of sufficient size and 
strength. 

It chanced that there were in Paris at the time 
two professional aeronauts of proved experience and 
skill, both of whom had become well known in London 
only the season before in connection with M. Gif- 
fard's huge captive balloon at Ashburnham Park. 
These were MM. Godard and Yon, and to them was 
entrusted the establishment of two separate factories 
in spacious buildings, which were at once available 
and admirably adapted for the purpose. These were 
at the Orleans and the Northern Railway stations 
respectively, where spacious roofs and abundant 
elbow room, the chief requisites, were to be found. 
The first-mentioned station was presided over by M. 
Godard, the latter by M. Yon, assisted by M. Dar- 
tois. 

It was not doubted that the resources of the city 
would be able to supply the large demand that would 
be made for suitable material ; but silk as a fabric 
was at once barred on the score of expense alone. 
A single journey was all that needed to be calculated 
on for each craft, and thus calico would serve the pur- 
pose, and would admit of speedy making up. Slight 
differences in manufacture were adopted at the two 
factories. At the Northern station plain white 
calico was used, sewn with a sewing machine, whereas 
at the Orleans station the material was coloured 



212 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

and entrusted only to hand stitching. The all- 
important detail of varnish was supplied by a mixture 
of linseed oil and the active principle of ordinary 
driers, and this, laid on with a rubber, rendered the 
material gas-tight and quickly dry enough for use. 
Hundreds of hands, men and women, were employed 
at the two factories, at which some sixty balloons 
were produced before the end of the siege. Much 
of the more important work was entrusted to sailors, 
who showed special aptness, not only in fitting out 
and rigging the balloons, but also in their manage- 
ment when entrusted to the winds. 

It must have been an impressive sight for friend 
or foe to witness the departure of each aerial vessel 
on its venturesome mission. The bold plunge into 
space above the roofs of the imprisoned city ; the 
rapid climb into the sky and, later, the pearl drop 
high in air floating away to its uncertain and hazardous 
haven, running the gauntlet of the enemy's fire by 
day or braving what at first appeared to be equal 
danger, attending the darkness of night. It will be 
seen, however, that, of the two evils, that of the 
darkness was considered the less, even though, with 
strange and unreasonable excess of caution, the 
aeronauts would not suffer the use of the perfectly 
safe and almost indispensable Davy lamp. 

Before any free ascents were ventured on, two 
old balloons were put to some practical trial as sta- 
tionary observatories. One of these was moored at 
Montmartre, the other at Mont-souris. From these 
centres daily, when the weather permitted, captive 
ascents were made — four by day and two by night — 



THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 213 

to watch and locate the movements of the enemy. 
The system, as far as it went, was well planned, It 
was safe, and, to favour expedition, messages were 
written in the car of the balloon and slid down the 
cable to the attendants below. The net result, how- 
ever, from a strategic point of view, does not appear 
to have been of great value. 

Ere yet the balloons were ready, certain bold 
and eventful escapes were ventured on. M. Duruof, 
already introduced in these pages, trusting himself 
to the old craft, " Le Neptune," in unskyworthy con- 
dition, made a fast plunge into space, and, catching 
the upper winds, was borne away for as long a period 
as could be maintained at the cost of a prodigal 
expenditure of ballast. The balloon is said to hive 
described a visible parabola, like the trajectory of a 
projectile, and fell at Evreux in safety and beyond 
the range of the enemy's fire, though not far from 
their lines. This was on the 23rd of September. 
Two days afterwards the first practical trial was made 
with homing pigeons, with the idea of using them 
in connection with balloons for the establishment 
of an officially sanctioned post. MM. Maugin and 
Grandchamp conducted this voyage in the " Ville de 
Florence," and descended near Vernouillet, not far 
beyond Le Foret de St. Germain, and less than twenty 
miles from Paris. The serviceability of the pigeon, 
however, was clearly established, and a note con- 
tributed by Mr. Glaisher, relating to the breeding 
and choice of these birds, may be considered of in- 
terest. Mr. R. W. Aldridge, of Charlton, as quoted 
by Mr. Glaisher, stated that his experience went to 



2i 4 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

show that these birds can be produced with different 
powers of orientation to meet the requirements of 
particular cases. " The bird required to make jour- 
neys under fifty miles would materially differ in its 
pedigree from one capable of flying ioo or 600 miles. 
Attention, in particular, must be given to the colour 
of the eye ; if wanted for broad daylight the bird 
known as the ; Pearl Eye, 5 from its colour, should be 
selected ; but if for foggy weather or for twilight 
flying the black- or blue-eyed bird should receive 
the preference." 

Only a small minority, amounting to about sixty 
out of 360 birds taken up, returned to Paris, but 
these are calculated to have conveyed among them 
some 100,000 messages. To reduce these pigeon 
messages to the smallest possible compass a method 
of reduction by photography was employed with 
much success. A long letter might, in this way, be 
faithfully recorded on a surface of thinnest photo- 
graphic paper, not exceeding the dimensions of a 
postage stamp, and, when received, no more was 
necessary than to subject it to magnification, and then 
to transcribe it and send a fair copy to the addressee. 

The third voyage from Paris, on September 29th, 
was undertaken by Louis Godard in two small bal- 
loons, united together, carrying both despatches and 
pigeons, and a safe landing was effected at Mantes. 
This successful feat was rivalled the next day by M. 
Tissandier, who ascended alone in a balloon of only 
some 26,000 cubic feet capacity and reached earth 
at Dreux, in Normandy. 

These voyages exhausted the store of ready-made 






THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS: 21$ 

balloons, but by a week later the first of those being 
specially manufactured was ready, and conveyed in 
safety from the city no less a personage than M. 
Gambetta. 

The courageous resolve of the great man caused 
much sensation in Paris, the more so because, owing 
to contrary winds, the departure had to be postponed 
from day to day. And when, at length, on October 
7th, Gambetta and his secretary, with the aeronaut 
Trichet, actually got away, in company with another 
balloon, they were vigorously fired at with shot and 
shell before they had cleared St. Denis. Farther out 
over the German posts they were again under fire, 
and escaped by discharging ballast, not, however, 
before Gambetta had been grazed by a bullet. Yet 
once more they were assailed by German volleys 
before, about 3 p.m., they found a haven near Mont- 
didier. 

The usual dimensions of the new balloons gave 
a capacity of 70,000 cubic feet, and each of these, 
when inflated with coal gas, was calculated to convey 
a freight of passengers, ballast, and despatches amount- 
ing to some 2,000 pounds. Their despatch became 
frequent, sometimes two in the same twenty-four 
hours. In less than a single week in October as many 
as four balloons had fallen in Belgium, and as many 
more elsewhere. Up till now some sixteen ventures 
had ended well, but presently there came trouble. 
On October 22nd MM. Iglesia and Jouvencel fell at 
Meaux, occupied by the Prussians ; their despatches, 
however, were saved in a dung cart. The twenty- 
third voyage ended more unhappily. On this occa- 



2i6 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

sion a sailor acted as aeronaut, accompanied by an 
engineer, Etienne Antonin, and carrying nearly 1,000 
pounds of letters. It chanced that they descended 
near Orleans on the very day when that town was 
re-occupied by the enemy, and both voyagers w T ere 
made prisoners. The engineer, however, subsequently 
escaped. Three days later another sailor, also accom- 
panied by an engineer, fell at the town of Ferrieres, 
then occupied by the Prussians, when both were 
made prisoners. In this case, also, the engineer suc- 
ceeded in making his escape ; while the despatches 
were rescued by a forester and forwarded in safety. 
At about this date W. de Fonvielle, acting as 
aeronaut, and taking passengers, made a successful 
escape, of which he has given a graphic account. 
He had been baulked b3^ more than one serious con- 
tretemps. It had been determined that the depar- 
ture should be by night, and November 19th being 
fixed upon, the balloon was in process of inflation 
under a gentle wind that threatened a travel towards 
Prussian soil, when, as the moment of departure 
approached, a large hole was accidentally made in 
the fabric by the end of the metal pipe, and it was 
then too late to effect repairs. The next and follow- 
ing days the weather was foul, and the departure was 
not effected till the 25th, when he sailed away over 
the familiar but desolated country. He and his com- 
panions were fired at, but only when they were well 
beyond range, and in less than two hours the party 
reached Lou vain, beyond Brussels, some 180 English 
miles in a direct line from their starting point. This 
was the day after the " Ville d' Orleans " balloon had 



THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 217 

made the record voyage and distance of all the siege, 
falling in Norway, 600 miles north of Christiania, 
after a flight of fifteen hours. 

At the end of November, when over thirty escape 
voyages had been made, two fatal disasters occurred. 
A sailor of the name of Prince ascended alone on a 
moonless night, and at dawn, away on the north coast 
of Scotland, some fishermen sighted a balloon in the 
sky dropping to the westward in the ocean. The only 
subsequent trace of this balloon was a bag of de- 
spatches picked up in the Channel. Curiously enough, 
two days later almost the same story was repeated. 
Two aeronauts, this time in charge of despatches and 
pigeons, were carried out to sea and never traced. 

Undeterred by these disasters, a notable escape 
was now attempted. An important total eclipse of 
the sun was to occur in a track crossing southern 
Spain and Algeria on December 22nd. An enthusiastic 
astronomer, Janssen, was commissioned by the Aca- 
demy of Sciences to attend and make observations 
of this eclipse. But M. Janssen was in Paris, as 
were also his instruments, and the eclipse track lay 
nearly a thousand miles away. The one and only 
possible mode of fulfilling his commission was to try 
the off-chance afforded by balloon, and this chance 
he resorted to only twenty days before the eclipse 
was due. 

Taking with him the essential parts of a re- 
flecting telescope, and an active young sailor as 
assistant, he left Paris at 6 a.m. and rose at once 
to 3,600 feet, dipping again somewhat at sunrise 
(owing, as he supposed, to loss of heat through radia- 



218 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

tion), but subsequently ascending again rapidly under 
the increased altitude of the sun till his balloon at- 
tained its highest level of 7,200 feet. From this 
elevation, shortly after 11 a.m., he sighted the sea, 
when he commenced a descent which brought him to 
earth at the mouth of the Loire. It had been fast 
travelling — some 300 miles in little more than three 
hours — -and the ground wind was strong. Never- 
theless, neither apssengers nor instruments were 
injured, and M. Janssen was fully established by the 
day of eclipse on his observing ground at Oran, on 
the Algerian coast. It is distressing to add that the 
phenomenon was hidden by cloud. In the month 
that followed this splendid venture no fewer than 
fifteen balloons escaped from Paris, of which four 
fell into the hands of the enemy, although for greater 
security all ascents were now being made by night. 

On January 13th, 1871, a new device for the return 
post was tried, and, in addition to pigeons, sheep 
dogs were taken up, with the idea of their being 
returned to the city with messages concealed within 
their collars. There is apparently no record of any 
message having been returned to the town by this 
ingenious method. On January 24th a balloon, 
piloted by a sailor, and containing a large freight of 
letters, fell within the Prussian lines, but the pat- 
riotism of the country was strong enough to secure 
the despatches being saved and entrusted to the safe 
conveyance of the Post Office. Then followed the 
total loss of a balloon at sea ; but this was destined 
to be the last, save one, that was to attempt the 
dangerous mission. The next day, January 28th, 



THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 219 

the last official balloon left the town, manned by a 
single sailor, carrying but a small weight of despatches, 
but ordering the ships to proceed to Dieppe for the 
re victualling of Paris. 

Five additional balloons at that time in readiness 
were never required for the risky service for which 
they were designed. 

There can be little doubt that had the siege coii- 
tinued a more elaborate use of balloons would have 
been developed. Schemes were being mooted to 
attempt the vastly more difficult task of conveying 
balloons into Paris from outside. When hostilities 
terminated there were actually six balloons in readi- 
ness for this venture at Lisle, and waiting only for a 
northerly wind. M. de Fonvielle, possessed of both 
courage and experience, was prepared to put in prac- 
tice a method of guiding by a small propelling force 
a balloon that was being carried by sufficiently favour- 
ing winds within a few degrees of its desired goal — and 
in the case of Paris the goal was an area of some 
twenty miles in diameter. Within the invested area 
several attempts were actually made to control bal- 
loons by methods of steering. The names of Vert 
and Dupuy de Lome must here be specially men^ 
tioned. The former had elaborated an invention 
which received much assistance, and was subsequently 
exhibited at the Crystal Palace. The latter received 
a grant of £1,600 to perfect a complex machine, having 
within its gas envelope an air chamber, suggested by 
the swimming bladder of a fish, having also a sail 
helm and a propelling screw, to be operated by manual 
labour. 



220 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

The relation of this invention to others of 
similar purpose will he further discussed later on. 
But an actual trial of a dirigible craft, the design of 
Admiral Labrousse, was made from the Orleans 
railway station on January gth. This machine con- 
sisted of a balloon of about the standard capacity 
of the siege balloons, namely some 70,000 cubic 
feet, fitted with two screws of about 12 feet diameter, 
but capable of being readily worked at moderate 
speed. It was not a success. M. Richard, with 
three sailors, made a tentative ascent, and used their 
best endeavours to control their vessel, but practic- 
ally without avail, and the machine presently coming 
to earth clumsily, a portion of the gear caught in the 
ground and the travellers were thrown over and roughly 
dragged for a long distance. 

Fairly looked at, the aerial post of the siege of 
Paris must be regarded as an ambitious and, on the 
whole, successful enterprise. Some two million and 
a half of letters, amounting in weight to some ten 
tons, v/ere conveyed through the four months, in 
addition to which at least an equal weight of other 
freight was taken up, exclusive of actual passengers, 
of whom no fewer than two hundred were transported 
from the beleaguered city. Of these only one re- 
turned, seven or eight were drowned, twice this num- 
ber were taken prisoners, and as many again more 
or less injured in descents. From a purely financial 
point of view the undertaking was no failure, as the 
cost, great as it necessarily became, was, it is said, 
fairly covered by the postage, which it was possible 
and by no means unreasonable to levy. The recog- 



THE BALLOON IN THE SIEGE OF PARIS: 221 

nised tariff seemes to have been 20 centimes for 
4 grammes, or at the rate of not greatly more than a 
shilling per English ounce. Surely hardly on a par 
with famein prices in a time of siege. 

It has already been stated that the defenders of 
Paris did not derive substantial assistance from the 
services of such a reconnoitring balloon as is gener- 
ally used in warfare at every available opportunity. 
It is possible that the peculiar circumstances of the 
investment of the town rendered such reconnaissance 
of comparatively small value. Brit, at any rate, it 
seems clear that due opportunity was not given to 
this strategic method. M. Giffard, who at the com- 
mencement of the siege was in Paris, and whose ex- 
perience with a captive balloon was second to none, 
made early overtures to the Government, offering to 
build for £40,000 a suitable balloon, capable of raising 
forty persons to a height of 3,000 feet. Forty aerial 
scouts, it maybe said, are hardly needed for purposes 
of outlook at one time ; but it appears that this was 
not the consideration which stood in the way of M. 
Giffard's offer being accepted. According to M. de 
Fonvielle, the Government refused the experienced 
aeronaut's proposal on the ground that he required 
a place in the Champs Elysees, " which it would 
be necessary to clear of a few shrubs " ! 



CHAPTER XIX. 

'I HE TRAGEDY OF THE " ZENITH."— THE NAVIGABLE 

BALLOON. 

THE mechanical air ship had, by this time, as may 
be inferred, begun seriously to occupy the atten- 
tion of both theoretical and practical aeronauts. One 
of the earliest machines deserving of special mention 
was designed by M. Giffard, and consisted of an elon- 
gated balloon, 104 feet in length and 39 feet in great- 
est diameter, furnished with a triangular rudder, and 
a steam engine operating a screw. The fire of the 
engine, which burned coke, was skilfully protected, 
and the fuel and water required were taken into cal- 
culation as so much ballast to be gradually expended. 
In this vessel, inflated only with coal gas, and some- 
what unmanageable and difficult to balance, the enthu- 
siastic inventor ascended alone from the Hippodrome 
and executed sundry desired movements, not unsuc- 
cessfully. But the trial was not of long duration, 
and the descent proved both rapid and perilous. Had 
the trial been made in such a perfect calm as that 
which prevailed when certain subsequent inventions 
were tested, it was considered that M. Giffard's vessel 
would have been as navigable as a boat in the water. 
This unrivalled mechanician, after having made great 
advances in the direction of high speed engines of 
sufficient lightness, proceeded to design a vastly 



THE NAVIGABLE BALLOON, 223 

improved dirigible balloon, when his endeavours 
were frustrated by blindness. 

As has been already stated, M. Dupuy de Lome, 
at the end of the siege of Paris, was engaged in build- 
ing a navigable balloon, which, owing to the unsettled 
state of affairs in France, did not receive its trial till 
two years later. This balloon, which was inflated 
with pure hydrogen, was of greater capacity than that 
of M. Giffard, being cigar shaped and measuring 
118 feet by 48 feet. It was also provided with an 
ingenious arrangement consisting of an internal air- 
bag, capable of being either inflated or discharged, 
for the purpose of keeping the principal envelope 
always distended, and thus offering the least possible 
resistance to the wind. The propelling power was 
the manual labour of eight men working the screw, 
and the steerage was provided for by a triangular 
rudder. The trial, which was carried out without 
mishap, took place in February, 1872, in the Fort 
of Vincennes, under the personal direction of the 
inventor, when it was found that the vessel readily 
obeyed the helm, and was capable of a speed exceed- 
ing six miles an hour. 

It was not till nine years after this that the next 
important trial with air ships was made. The brothers 
Tissandier will then be found taking the lead, and an 
appalling incident in the aeronautical career of one 
of these has now to be recorded. 

In the spring of 1875, and with the co-operation 
of French scientific societies, it was determined to 
make two experimental voyages in a balloon called 
the " Zenith," one of these to be of long duration, 



224 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

the other of great height. The first of these had been 
successfully accomplished in a flight of twenty-four 
hours' duration from Paris to Bordeaux. It was 
now April the 15th, and the lofty flight was embarked 
upon by M. Gaston Tissandier, accompanied by 
MM. Croce-Spinelli and Sivel. Under competent 
advice, provision for respiration on emergency was 
provided in three small balloons, filled with a mixture 
of air and oxygen, and fitted with indiarubber hose 
pipes, which would allow the mixture, when inhaled, 
to pass first through a wash bottle containing aro- 
matic fluid. The experiments determined on included 
an analysis of the proportion of carbonic acid gas 
at different heights by means of special apparatus ; 
spectroscopic observations, and the readings registered 
by certain barometers and thermometers. A novel 
and valuable experiment, also arranged, was that of 
testing the internal temperature of the balloon as 
compared with that of the external air. 

Ascending at 11.30 a.m. under a warm sun, the 
balloon had by 1 p.m. reached an altitude of 16,000 
feet, when the external air was at freezing point, 
the gas high in the balloon being 72 , and at the centre 
66°. Ere this height had been fully reached, how- 
ever, the voyagers had begun to breathe oxygen. 
At 11.57, an hour previously, Spinelli had written in 
his notebook, " Slight pain in the ears — -somewhat 
oppressed — it is the gas." At 23,000 feet Sivel 
wrote in his notebook, " I am inhaling oxygen — 
the effect is excellent," after which he proceeded to 
urge the balloon higher by a discharge of ballast. 
The rest of the terrible narrative has now to be taken 



THE NAVIGABLE BALLOON. 225 

from the notes of M. Tissandier, and as these con- 
stitute one of the most thrilling narratives in aero- 
nautical records we transcribe them nearly in full, 
as given by Mr. Glaisher : — 

" At 23,000 feet we were standing up in the car. 
Sivel, who had given up for a moment, is re-invigorated. 
Croce-Spinelli is motionless in front of me. ... I 
felt stupefied and frozen. I wished to put on my 
fur gloves, but, without being conscious of it, the 
action of taking them from my pocket necessitated 
an effort that I could no longer make. ... I copy, 
verbatim, the following lines which were written by 
me, although I have no very distinct remembrance 
of doing so. They are traced in a hardly legible manner 
by a hand trembling with cold : ' My hands are 
frozen. I am all right. We are all all right. Fog in the 
horizon, with little rounded cirrus. We are ascend- 
ing. Croce pants ; he inhales oxygen. Sivel closes 
his eyes. Croce also closes his eyes, . * . Sivel 
throws out ballast ' — these last words are hardly 
readable. Sivel seized his knife and cut successively 
three cords, and the three bags emptied themselves 
and we ascended rapidly. The last remembrance of 
this ascent which remains clear to me relates to a 
moment earlier. Croce-Spinelli was seated, holding 
in one hand a wash bottle of oxygen gas. His head 
was slightly inclined and he seemed oppressed. I had 
still strength to tap the aneroid barometer to facili- 
tate the movement of the needle. Sivel had just 
raised his hand towards the sky. As for myself, I 
remained perfectly still, without suspecting that I 
had, perhaps, already lost the power of moving, 
p 



226 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

About the height of 25,000 feet the condition of stupe- 
faction which ensues is extraordinary. The mind 
and body weaken by degrees, and imperceptibly, 
without consciousness of it. No suffering is then 
experienced ; on the contrary, an inner joy is felt 
like an irradiation from the surrounding flood of 
light. One becomes indifferent. One thinks no more 
of the perilous position or of danger. One ascends, 
and is happy to ascend. The vertigo of the upper 
regions is not an idle word ; but, so far as I can judge 
from my personal impression, vertigo appears at the 
last moment ; it immediately precedes annihilation, 
sudden, unexpected, and irresistible. 

" When Sivel cut away the bags of ballast at the 
height of about 24,000 feet, I seemed to remember 
that he was sitting at the bottom of the car, and nearly 
in the same position as Croce-Spinelli. For my part, 
I was in the angle of the car, thanks to which support 
I was able to hold up ; but I soon felt too weak even 
to turn my head to look at my companions. Soon 
I wished to take hold of the tube of oxygen, but it 
was impossible to raise my arm. My mind, never- 
theless, was quite clear. I wished to explain, 'We 
are 8,000 metres high ' ; but my tongue was, as it 
were, paralysed. All at once I closed my eyes, and, 
sinking down inert, became insensible. This was 
about 1.30 p.m. At 2.8 p.m. I awoke for a moment, 
and found the balloon rapidly descending. I was 
able to cut away a bag of ballast to check the speed 
and write in my notebook the following lines, which 
I copy : 

" ' We are descending. Temperature, 3 . I throw 



THE NAVIGABLE BALLOON; 227 

out ballast. Barometer, 124 inches. We are de- 
scending. Sivel and Croce still in a fainting state 
at the bottom of the car. Descending very rapidly.' 

" Hardly had I written these lines when a kind 
of trembling seized me, and I fell back weakened 
again. There was a violent wind from below, up- 
wards, denoting a very rapid descent. After some 
minutes I felt myself shaken by the arm, and I recog- 
nised Croce, who had revived. ' Throw out ballast,' 
he said to me, £ we are descending ' ; but I could 
hardly open my eyes, and did not see whether Sivel 
was awake. I called to mind that Croce unfastened 
the aspirator, which he then threw overboard, and 
then he threw out ballast, rugs, etc. 

" All this is an extremely confused remembrance, 
quickly extinguished, for again I fell back inert more 
completely than before, and it seemed to me that I 
was dying. What happened ? It is certain that 
the balloon, relieved of a great weight of ballast, 
at once ascended to the higher regions. 

" At 3.30 p.m. I opened my eyes again. I felt 
dreadfully giddy and oppressed, but gradually came 
to myself. The balloon was descending with fright- 
ful speed and making great oscillations. I crept 
along on my knees, and I pulled Sivel and Croce by 
the arm. ' Sivel ! Croce ! ' I exclaimed, ' Wake up ! ' 
My two companions were huddled up motionless in 
the car, covered by their cloaks. I collected all my 
strength, and endeavoured to raise thern up. Sivel's 
face was black, his eyes dull, and his mouth was 
open and full of blood. Croce's eyes were half closed 
and his mouth^was_bloody. 



228 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

" To relate what happened afterwards is quite im- 
possible. I felt a frightful wind ; we were still 9,700 
feet high. There remained in the car two bags of 
ballast, which I threw out. I was drawing near the 
earth. I looked for my knife to cut the small rope 
which held the anchor, but could not find it. I was 
like a madman, and continued to call ' Sivel ! Sivel ! ' 
By good fortune I was able to put my hand upon my 
knife and detach the anchor at the right moment. 
The shock on coming to the ground was dreadful. 
The balloon seemed as if it were being flattened. I 
thought it was going to remain where it had fallen, 
but the wind was high, and it was dragged across 
fields, the anchor not catching. The bodies of my 
unfortunate friends were shaken about in the car, 
and I thought every moment they would be jerked 
out. At length, however, I seized the valve line, 
and the gas soon escaped from the balloon, which 
lodged against a tree. It was then four o'clock. On 
stepping out, I was seized with a feverish attack, 
and sank down and thought for a moment that I was 
going to join my friends in the next world ; but I 
came to. I found the bodies of my friends cold and 
stiff. I had them put under shelter in an adjacent 
barn. The descent of the * Zenith ' took place in 
the plains 155 miles from Paris as the crow fliesi The 
greatest height attained in this ascent is estimated 
at 28,000 feet." 

It was in 1884 that the brothers Tissandier com- 
menced experiments with a screw-propelled air ship 
resembling in shape those constructed by Giffard 
and Dupuy de Lome, but smaller, measuring only 



THE NAVIGABLE BALLOON, 229 

91 feet by 30 feet, and operated by an electric motor 
placed in circuit with a powerful battery of bichromate 
cells. Two trials were made with this vessel in Octo- 
ber, 1883, an d again in the following September, 
when it proved itself capable of holding its course 
in calm air and of being readily controlled by the 
rudder. 

But, ere this, a number of somewhat similar ex- 
periments, on behalf of the French Government, had 
been entered upon by Captains .Renard and Krebs 
at Chalais-Meudon. Their balloon may be described 
as fish-shaped, 165 feet long, and 27.5 feet in principal 
diameter. It was operated by an electric motor, 
which was capable of driving a screw of large dimen- 
sions at forty-eight revolutions per minute. At its 
first trial, in x\ugust, 1884, in dead calm, it attained 
a velocity of over twelve miles per hour, travelling 
some two and a half miles in. a forward direction, 
when, by application of the rudder and judicious 
management, it was manoeuvred homewards, and prac- 
tically brought to earth at the point of departure. 

A more important trial was made on the 12th of 
the following month, and was witnessed by M. Tis- 
sandier, according to whom the aerostat conveying 
the inventors ascended gently and steadily, drifting 
with an appreciable breeze until the screw was set 
in motion and the helm put down, when the vessel 
was brought round to the wind and held its own until 
the motor, by an accident, ceased working. A little 
later the same air ship met with more signal success. 
On one occasion, starting from Chalais-Meudon, it 
took a direct course to the N.E., crossing the railway 



230 THE [DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

and the Seine, where the aeronauts, stopping the screw, 
ascertained the velocity of the wind to be approxi- 
mately five miles an hour. The screw being again 
put in motion, the balloon was steered to the right, 
and, following a path parallel to its first, returned 
to its point of departure. Starting again the same 
afternoon, it was caused to perform a variety of 
aerial evolutions, and after thirty-five minutes re- 
turned once more to its starting place. 

A tabular comparison of the four navigable bal- 
loons which we have now described has been given 
as follows : — 



Date. 


Name. 


Motor. 


Vel. p. Sec. 


1852 


M. Henri Giffard 


Steam engine 


13*12 ft. 


1872 


M. Dupuy de Lome 


Muscular force 


,9- 1 8 ft. 


1883 


MM, Tissandier 


Electric motor 


9-84 ft. 


1884 


MM.Renard&Krebs 


Electric motor 


18*04 ft. 



About this period, that is in 1883, and really 
prior to the Meudon experiments, there were other 
attempts at aerial locomotion not to be altogether 
passed over, which were made also in France, but 
financed by English money. The experiments were 
performed by Mr. F. A. Gower, who, writing to Pro- 
fessor Tyndall, claims to have succeeded in " driving 
a large balloon fairly against the wind by steam power." 
A melancholy interest will always belong to these 
trials from the fact that Mr. Gower was subsequently 
blown out to sea with his balloon, leaving no trace 
behind. 

At this stage it will be well to glance at some of 
the more important theories which were being mooted 
as to the possibility of aerial locomotion properly so 



THE NAVIGABLE BALLOON. 231 

called. Broadly, there were two rival schools at this 
time, we. Will call them the " lighter- than-air-ites " and 
the " heavier-than-air-ites," respectively. The former 
were the advocates of the air vessel of which the 
balloon is a type. The latter school maintained 
that, as birds are heavier than air, so the air locomo- 
tive of the future would be a machine itself heavier 
than air, but capable of being navigated by a motor 
yet to be discovered, which would develop propor- 
tionate power. Sir H. Maxim's words may be aptly 
quoted here. " In all Nature," he saj^s, " we do not 
find a single balloon. All Nature's flying machines 
are heavier than the air, and depend altogether upon 
the development of dynamic energy." 

The faculty of soaring, possessed by many birds, 
of which the albatross may be considered a type, led 
to numerous speculations as to what would constitute 
the ideal principle of the air motor. Sir G. Cayley, 
as far back as 1809, wrote a classical article on this 
subject, without, however, adding much to its elucida- 
tion. Others after his time conceived that the bird, 
by sheer habit and practice, could perform, as it were, 
a trick in balancing by making use of the complex 
air streams varying in speed and direction that were 
supposed to intermingle above. 

Mr. R. A. Proctor discusses the matter with his 
usual clear-sightedness. He premises that the bird 
may, in actual fact, only poise itself for some ten 
minutes — an interval which many will consider far 
too small — without flap of the wings, and, while 
contending that the problem must ,be simply a me- 
chanical one, is ready to admit that " the sustaining 



232 THE DOMINION OF THE Atk. 

power of the air on bodies of a particular form tra- 
velling swiftly through it may be much greater or 
very different in character from what is supposed." 
In his opinion, it is a fact that a flat body travelling 
swiftly and horizontally will sink towards the ground 
much more slowly than a similar body moving simi- 
larly but with less speed. In proof of this he gives 
the homely illustration of a flat stone caused to make 
" ducks and drakes." Thus he contends that the 
bird accomplishes its floating feat simply by occasional 
powerful propulsive efforts, combined with perfect 
balance. From which he deduces the corollary that 
" if ever the art of flying, or rather of making flying 
machines, is attained by man, it will be by combining 
rapid motion with the power of perfect balancing." 

It will now appear as a natural and certain con- 
sequence that a feature to be introduced by experi- 
mentalists into flying machines should be the " Aero- 
plane," or, in other words, a plane which, at a desired 
angle, should be driven at speed through the air. 
Most notable attempts with this expedient were now 
shortly made by Hiram Maxim, Langley, and others. 

But, contemporaneously with these attempts, 
certain feats with the rival aerostat — the balloon — 
were accomplished, which will be most fittingly told 
in this place. 



CHAPTER XX. 

A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 

IT will have been gathered from what has been already 
stated that the balloonist is commonly in much 
uncertainty as to his precise course when he is above 
the clouds, or when unable from darkness to see the 
earth beneath him. With a view of overcoming this 
disadvantage some original experiments were sug- 
gested by a distinguished officer, who during the seven- 
ties had begun to interest himself in aeronautics. 

This was Captain Burnaby. His method was to 
employ two small silk parachutes, which, if required, 
might carry burning magnesium wires, and which 
were to be attached to each other by a length of silk 
thread. On dropping one parachute, it would first 
partake of the motion of the balloon, but would pre- 
sently drop below, when the second parachute would 
be dismissed, and then an imaginary line drawn be- 
tween the tw T o bodies was supposed to betray the 
balloon's course. It should be mentioned, however, 
that If a careful study is made of the course of many 
descending parachutes it will be found that their 
behaviour is too uncertain to be relied upon for such 
a purpose as the above. They will often float behind 
the balloon's wake, but sometimes again will be found 
in front, and sometimes striking off in some side 
direction, so w T ayward and complex are the currents 



234 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

which control such small bodies. Mr. Glaisher has 
stated that a balloon's course above the clouds may 
be detected by observing the grapnel, supposed to 
be hanging below the car, as this would be seen to 
be out of the vertical as the balloon drifted, and 
thus serve to indicate the course. However this may 
be, the most experienced sky sailors will be found to 
be in perplexity as to their direction, as also their 
speed, when view of the earth is obscured. 

But Captain Burnaby is associated notably with 
the adventurous side of ballooning, the most famous 
of his aerial exploits being, perhaps, that of crossing 
the English Channel alone from Dover on March 23rd, 
1882. Outwardly, he made pretence of sailing to 
Paris by sky to dine there that evening ; inwardly, he 
had determined to start simply with a wind which 
bid fair for a cross-Channel trip, and to take whatever 
chances it might bring him. 

Thus, at 10.30 a.m., just as the mail packet left 
the pier, he cast off with a lifting power which rapidly 
carried him to a height of 2,000 feet, when he found 
his course to be towards Folkestone. But by shortly 
after n o'clock he had decided that he was changing 
his direction, and when, as he judged, some seven miles 
from Boulogne, the wind was carrying him not across, 
but down the Channel. Then, for nearly four hours, 
the balloon shifted about with no improvement in 
the outlook, after which the wind fell calm, and the 
balloon remained motionless at 2,000 feet above the 
sea. This state of things continuing for an hour, the 
Captain resolved on the heroic expedient of casting 
out all his ballast and philosophically abiding the issue. 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 235 

The manoeuvre turned out a happy one, for the bal- 
loon, shooting up to 11,000 feet, caught a current, oil 
which it was rapidly carried towards and over the 
main land ; and, when twelve miles beyond Dieppe, 
it became easy to descend to a lower level by manipu- 
lation of the valve, and finally to make a successful 
landing in open country beyond. 

A few years before, an attempt to cross the Channel 
from the other side ended far more disastrously. 
Jules Duruof, already mentioned as having piloted 
the first runaway balloon from beleaguered Paris, 
had determined on an attempt to cross over to England 
from Calais ; and, duly advertising the event, a 
large concourse assembled on the day announced, 
clamouring loudly for the ascent. But the wind 
proved unsuitable, setting out over the North Sea, 
and the mayor thought fit to interfere, and had the 
car removed so as to prevent proceedings. On this 
the crowd grew impatient, and Duruof, determining 
to keep faith with them, succeeded by an artifice 
in regaining his car, which he hastily carried back to 
the balloon, and immediately taking his seat, and 
accompanied by his wife, the intrepid pair com- 
menced their bold flight just as the shades of evening 
were settling down. Shortly the balloon disappeared 
into the gathering darkness, and then for three days 
Calais knew no more of balloon or balloonists. 

Neither could the voyagers see aught for certain 
of their own course, and thus through the long night 
hours their attention was wholly needed, without 
chance of sleep, in closely watching their situation, 
lest unawares they should be borne down on the waves. 



236 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

When morning broke they discovered that they were 
still being carried out over the sea on a furious gale, 
being apparently off the Danish coast, with the dis- 
tant mountains of Norway dimly visible on the star- 
board bow. It was at this point, and possibly owing 
to the chill commonly experienced aloft soon after 
dawn, that the balloon suddenly took a downward 
course and plunged into the sea, happily, however, fairly 
in the track of vessels. Presently a ship came in sight, 
but cruelly kept on its course, leaving the castaways in 
despair, with their car fast succumbing to the waves. 

Help, nevertheless, was really at hand. The 
captain of an English fishing smack, The Grand Charge, 
had sighted the sinking balloon, and was already 
bearing down to the rescue. It is said that when, at 
length, a boat came alongside as near as it was pos- 
sible, Madame Duruof was unable to make the neces- 
sary effort to jump on board, and her husband had 
to throw her into the arms of the sailors. A fitting 
sequel to the story comes from Paris, where the heroic 
couple, after a sojourn in England, were given a 
splendid reception and a purse of money, with which 
M. Duruof forthwith constructed a new balloon, 
named the " Ville de Calais." 

On the 4th of March, 1882, the ardent amateur 
balloonist, Mr. Simmons, had a narrow escape in 
circumstances somewhat similar to the above. He 
was attempting, in company with Colonel Brine, to 
cross the Channel from Canterbury, when a change 
of wind carried them out towards the North Sea. 
Falling in the water, they abandoned their balloon, 
but were rescued by the mail packet Foam. 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 237 

The same amateur aeronaut met with an exciting 
experience not long after, when in company with 
Sir Claude C. de Crespigny. The two adventurers 
left Maldon, in Essex, at n p.m., on an August night, 
and, sailing at a great height out to sea, lost all sight 
of land till 6 a.m. the next morning, when, at 17,000 
feet altitude, they sighted the opposite coast and 
descended in safety near Flushing. 

Yet another adventure at sea, and one which proved 
fatal and unspeakably regrettable, occurred about 
this time, namely, on the 10th of December, 1881, 
when Captain Templer, Mr. W. Powell, M.P., and Mr. 
Agg-Gardner ascended from Bath. We prefer to 
give the account as it appears in a leading article 
in the Times for December 13th of that year. 

After sailing over Glastonbury, " Crewkerne was 
presently sighted, then Beaminster. The roar of the 
sea gave the next indication of the locality to which 
the balloon had drifted and the first hint of the pos- 
sible perils of the voyage. A descent was now effected 
to within a few hundred feet of earth, and an endeavour 
was made to ascertain the exact position they had 
reached. The course taken by the balloon between 
Beaminster and the sea is not stated in Captain Tem- 
pler's letter. The wind, as far as we can gather, 
must have shifted, or different currents of air must 
have been found at the different altitudes. What 
Captain Templer says is that they coasted along to 
Symonsbury, passing, it would seem, in an easterly 
direction and keeping still very near to the earth. 
Soon after they had left Symonsbury, Captain Templer 
shouted to a man below to tell them how far they 



238 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

were from Bridport, and he received for answer that 
Bridport was about a mile off. The pace at which 
the balloon was moving had now increased to thirty- 
five miles an hour. The sea was dangerously close, 
and a few minutes in a southerly current of air would 
have been enough to carry them over it. They 
seem, however, to have been confident in their own 
powers of management. They threw out ballast, 
and rose to a height of 1,500 feet, and thence came 
down again only just in time, touching the ground 
at a distance of about 150 yards from the cliff. The 
balloon here dragged for a few feet, and Captain Tem- 
pler, who had been letting off the gas, rolled out of 
the car, still holding the valve line in his hand. This 
was the last chance of a safe escape for anybody. 
The balloon, with its weight lightened, went up about 
eight feet. Mr. Agg-Gardner dropped out and broke 
his leg. Mr. Powell now remained as the sole occu- 
pant of the car. Captain Templer, who had still 
hold of the rope, shouted to Mr. Powell to come down 
the line. This he attempted to do, but in a few 
seconds, and before he could commence his perilous 
descent, the line was torn out of Captain Templer's 
hands. All communication with the earth was cut 
off, and the balloon rose rapidly, taking Mr. Powell 
with it in a south-easterly direction out to sea." 

It was a few seasons previous to this, namely, on 
the 9th of July, 1874, when Mr. Simmons was con- 
cerned in a balloon fatality of a peculiarly distressing 
nature. A Belgian, Vincent de Groof, styling him- 
self the " Flying Man," announced his intention of 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 239 

descending in a parachute from a balloon piloted 
by Mr. Simmons, who was to start from Cremorne 
Gardens. The balloon duly ascended, with De Groof 
in his machine suspended below, and when over St. 
Luke's Church, and at a height estimated at 80 feet, 
it is thought that the unfortunate man overbalanced 
himself after detaching his apparatus, and fell for- 
ward, clinging to the ropes. The machine failed to 
open, and De Groof was precipitated into Robert 
Street, Chelsea, expiring almost immediately. The 
porter of Chelsea Infirmary, who' was watching the 
balloon, asserted that he fancied the falling man 
called out twice, " Drop into the churchyard ; look 
out ! " Mr. Simmons, shooting upwards in his bal- 
loon, thus suddenly lightened, to a great height, be- 
came insensible, and when he recovered consciousness 
found himself over Victoria Park. He made a descent, 
without mishap, on a line of railway in Essex. 

On the 19th of August, 1887, occurred an important 
total eclipse of the sun, the track of which lay across 
Germany, Russia, Western Siberia, and Japan. At 
all suitable stations along the shadow track astro- 
nomers from all parts of the world established them- 
selves ; but at many eclipses observers had had bad 
fortune owing to the phenomenon at the critical 
moment being obscured. And on this account one 
astronomer determined on measures which should 
render his chances of a clear view a practical certainty. 
Professor Mendeleef, in Russia, resolved to engage a 
balloon, and by rising above the cloud barrier, should 
there be one, to have the eclipse all to himself. It 
was an example of fine enthusiasm, which, moreover, 



240 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

was presently put to a severe and unexpected test, 
for the balloon, when inflated, proved unable to take 
up both the aeronaut and the astronomer, where- 
upon the latter, though wholly inexperienced, had no 
alternative but to ascend alone, which, either by ac- 
cident or choice, he actually did. Shooting up into 
space, he soon reached an altitude of 11,500 feet, 
where he obtained, even if he did not enjoy, an un- 
obstructed view of the Corona. It may be supposed, 
however, that, owing to the novelty of his situation, 
his scientific observations may not have been so 
complete as they would have been on terra firmd. 

In the same month an attempt to reach a record 
height was made by MM. Jovis and Mallet at Paris, 
with the net result that an elevation of 23,000 feet 
was reached. It will have been noted that the diffi- 
culty through physical exhaustion of inhaling oxy- 
gen from either a bag or cylinder is a serious matter 
not easily overcome, and it has been suggested that 
the helmet invented by M. Fleuss might prove of 
value. This contrivance, which has scarcely attracted 
the attention it has merited, provides a receptacle 
for respiration, containing oxygen and certain puri- 
fying media, by means of which the inventor was 
able to remain for hours under water without any 
communication with the outward air. 

About the period at which we have now arrived 
two fatal accidents befel English aeronauts. We 
have related how Maldon, in Essex, was associated 
with one of the more adventurous exploits in Mr. 
Simmons's career. It was fated also to be associated 
with the voyage with which bis career closed. On 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS: 241 

August 27th, 1888, he ascended from Olympia in 
company with Mr. Field, of West Brighton, and Mr. 
Myers, of the Natural History Museum, with the 
intention, if practicable, of crossing to Flanders; 
and the voyage proceeded happily until the neigh- 
bourhood of Maldon was reached, when, as the sea 
coast was in sight, and it was already past five o'clock, 
it appeared prudent to Mr. Simmons to descend and 
moor the balloon for the night. Some labourers 
some three miles from Maldon sighted the balloon 
coming up at speed, and at the same time descending 
until its grapnel commenced tearing through a field 
of barley, when ballast was thrown out, causing the 
balloon to rise again towards and over some tall elms, 
which became the cause of the disaster which fol- 
lowed. The grapnel, catching in the upper boughs 
of one of these trees, held fast, while the balloon, 
borne by the force of a strong wind, was repeatedly 
blown down to earth with violence, rebounding each 
time to a considerable height, only to be flung down 
again on the same spot. After three or four impacts 
the balloon is reported to have burst with a loud noise, 
when high in the air, the silk being blown about over 
the field, and the car and its occupants dashed to 
the ground. Help was unavailing till this final catas- 
trophe, and when, at length, the labourers were able 
to extricate the party, Mr. Simmons was found with 
a fractured skull and both companions badly injured. 
Four summers later, June 30th. 1892, Captain 
Dale, the aeronaut to the Crystal Palace, was an- 
nounced to make an ascent from the usual balloon 
grounds, weather permitting. Through the night 
Q 



242 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

and morning a violent storm prevailed, and it was 
contemplated that the exhibition would be withdrawn ; 
but the wind abating in the afternoon, the inflation 
was proceeded with, and the ascent took place shortly 
before 6 p.m., not, however, before a large rent had 
been discovered and repaired as far as possible by 
Mrs. Dale. As passengers, there ascended the Cap- 
tain's son William, aged nineteen, Mr. J. Macintosh, 
and Mr. Cecil Shadbolt. When the balloon had reached 
an altitude estimated at 600 feet the onlookers were 
horrified to see it suddenly collapse, a large rent having 
developed near the top part of the silk, from which 
the gas " rushed out in a dense mass, allowing the 
balloon to fall like a rag." The occupants of the car 
were seen to be throwing out everything madly, even 
wrenching the buttons from their clothing. All, how- 
ever, with little avail, for the balloon fell " with a 
sickening thud," midway between the Maze and 
lower lake. All were found alive ; but Captain Dale, 
who had alighted on his back, died in a few minutes ; 
Mr. Shadbolt succumbed later, and both remaining 
passengers sustained terrible injuries. 

Few balloon mishaps, unattended with fatal results, 
have proved more exciting than the following. A 
large party had ascended from Belfast, in a monster 
balloon, under the guidance of Mr. Coxwell, on a day 
which was very unfit for the purpose by reason of 
stormy weather. A more serious trouble than the 
wind, however, lay in several of the passengers them- 
selves, who seem to have been highly excitable Irish- 
men, incapable at the critical moment of quietly 
obeying orders. 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 243 

The principal hero of the story, a German. 
Mr. Runge, in writing afterwards to the Ulster 
Observer, entirely exonerates Mr. Coxwell from 
any blame, attributing his mischances solely to 
the reprehensible conduct of his companions. On 
approaching the ground, Mr. Coxwell gave clear in- 
structions. The passengers were to sit down in an 
unconstrained position facing each other, and be pre- 
pared for some heavy shocks. Above all things they 
were to be careful to get out one by one, and on no 
account to leave hold of the car. Many of the pas- 
sengers, however, refused to sit down, and, according 
to Mr. Runge, " behaved in the wildest manner, 
losing completely their self-control. Seizing the valve 
rope themselves, they tore it away from its attach- 
ment, the stronger pushing back the weaker, and re- 
fusing to lend help when they had got out. In con- 
sequence of this the car, relieved of their weight, tore 
away from the grasp of Mr. Coxwell and those who 
still clung to it, and rose above the trees, with Mr. 
Runge and one other passenger, Mr. Halferty, alone 
within. As the balloon came earthwards again, they 
shouted to the countrymen for succour, but without 
the slightest avail, and presently, the anchor catching, 
the car struck the earth with a shock which threw 
Mr. Halferty out on the ground, leaving Mr. Runge 
to rise again into the air, this time alone." He thus 
continues the story : — 

"The balloon moved on, very soon, in a horizontal 
direction straight towards the sea, which we were 
then rapidly nearing. Coming to a farm, I shouted 
out to the people standing there. Some women, with 



244 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

their quick humane instincts, were the first to per- 
ceive my danger, and exhorted the men to hurry to 
my assistance, they themselves running as fast as 
they could to tender what little help they might be 
able to give me. The anchor stuck in a willow tree. 
I shouted out to the people below to secure the cable 
and anchor by ropes, which they did. The evening 
was now beautifully still, the breeze had died away, 
and the balloon was swinging calmly at her moorings 
above the farmhouse. One of the men asked me 
whether I had a rope with me, and how I intended 
to get out. I told them only to take care of the cable, 
because the balloon would settle down by herself 
before long. I was congratulating myself on a speedy 
escape from my dangerous position. I had not counted 
on the wind. A breeze in about six or eight minutes 
sprang up, tossed the balloon about like a large sail, 
then a crash, and — the anchor was loose again. It 
tore through the trees, flinging limbs and branches 
about like matches. It struck the roof of the farm- 
house, splintering the chimneys and tiles like glass. 
" On I went; I came near another farm; shouted out 
for help, and told the men to secure the anchor to 
the foot of a large tree close by. The anchor was 
soon made fast, but this was only a momentary relief. 
The breeze again filled the half-empty balloon like 
a sail, there was a severe strain on the cable, then a 
dull sound, and a severe concussion of the basket — 
the cable, strange fatality, had broken, and the 
anchor, my last and only hope, was gone. I 
was now carried on in a straight direction towards 
the sea, which was but a short distance ahead. The 



A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS. 245 

anchor being lost I gave up all hope. I sat down 
resigned in the car, and prepared for the end. All 
at once I discovered that a side current was drifting 
me towards the mountain ; the car struck the ground, 
and was dashing along at a fearful rate, knocking 
down stone fences and breaking everything it came 
in contact with in its wild career. By-and-by the 
knocks became less frequent. We were passing over 
a cultivated country, and the car was, as it were, 
skimming the surface and grazing the top of the hedges. 
I saw a thick hawthorn hedge at some distance be- 
fore me, and the balloon rapidly sweeping towards 
it. That was my only chance. I rushed to the edge 
of the car and flung myself down upon the hedge." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE. 

IN the early nineties the air ship was engaging the 
attention of many inventors, and was making 
important strides in the hands of Mr. Maxim. This 
unrivalled mechanician, in stating the case, premises 
that a motive power has to be discovered which can 
develop at least as much power in proportion to its 
weight as a bird is able to develop. He asserts that 
a heavy bird, with relatively small wings — such as a 
goose — carries about 150 lb. to the horse power, 
while the albatross or the vulture, possessed of pro- 
portionately greater winged surface, can carry about 
250 lbs. per horse power. 

Professor Langley, of Washington, working con- 
temporaneously, but independently of Mr. Maxim, 
had tried exhaustive experiments on a rotating arm 
(characteristically designated by Mr. Maxim a " merry- 
go-round "), thirty feet long, applying screw pro- 
pellers. He used, for the most part, small planes, 
carrying loads of only two or three pounds, and, under 
these circumstances, the weight carried was at the 
rate of 250 lbs. per horse power. His important 
statements with regard to these trials are that one- 
horse power will transport a larger weight at twenty 
miles an hour than at ten, and a still larger at forty 
miles than at twenty, and so on ; that " the sustain- 



THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE 247 

ing pressure of the air on a plane moving at a small 
angle of inclination to a horizontal path is many times 
greater than would result from the formula implicitly 
given by Newton, while, whereas in land or marine 
transport increased speed is maintained only by a 
disproportionate expenditure of power within the 
limits of experiment, in aerial horizontal transport 
the higher speeds are more economical of power than 
the lower ones." 

This Mr. Maxim is evidently ready to endorse, 
stating, in his own words, that birds obtain the greater 
part of their support by moving forward with suffi- 
cient velocity so as to be constantly resting on new 
air, the inertia of which has not been disturbed. Mr. 
Maxim's trials were on a scale comparable with all 
his mechanical achievements. He employed for his 
experiments a rotating arm, sweeping out a circle, 
the circumference of which was 200 feet. To the end 
of this arm he attached a cigar-shaped apparatus, 
driven by a screw, and arranged in such a manner 
that aero-planes could be attached to it at any angle. 
These planes were on a large scale, carrying weights 
of from 20 lbs. to 100 lbs. With this contrivance 
he found that, whatever push the screw communi- 
cated to the aero-plane, " the plane would lift in a 
vertical direction from ten to fifteen times as much 
as the horizontal push that it received from the screw, 
and which depended upon the angle at which the plane 
was set, and the speed at which the apparatus was 
travelling through the air." Next, having determined 
by experiment the power required to perform arti- 
ficial flight, Mr. Maxim applied himself to designing 



248 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

the requisite motor. " I constructed," he states, 
" two sets of compound engines of tempered steel, 
all the parts being made very light and strong, and 
a steam generator of peculiar construction, the greater 
part of the heating surface consisting of small and thin 
copper tubes. For fuel I employed naphtha." 

This Mr. Maxim wrote in 1892, adding that he 
was then experimenting with a large machine, having 
a spread of over 100 feet. Labour, skill, and money 
were lavishly devoted henceforward to the great task 
undertaken, and it was not long before the giant 
flying machine, the outcome of so much patient ex- 
perimenting, was completed and put to a practical 
trial. Its weight was 7,500 lbs. The screw pro- 
pellers were nearly 18 feet in diameter, each with two 
blades, while the engines were capable of being run 
up to 360 horse power. The entire machine was 
mounted on an inner railway track of 9 feet and an 
outer of 35 feet gauge, while above there was a re- 
versed rail along which the machine would begin to 
run so soon as with increase of speed it commenced 
to lift itself off the inner track. 

In one of the latest experiments it was found 
that when a speed of 42 miles an hour was attained 
all the wheels were running on the upper track, and 
revolving in the opposite direction from those On 
the lower track. However, after running about 1,000 
feet, an axle tree doubled up, and immediately after- 
wards the upper track broke away, and the machine, 
becoming liberated, floated in the air, " giving those 
on board a sensation of being in a boat." 

The experiment proved conclusively to the in- 



THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE 249 

vent or that a machine could be made on a large scale, 
in which the lifting effect should be considerably greater 
than the weight of the machine, and this, too, when 
a steam engine was the motor. When, therefore, in 
the years shortly following, the steam engine was for 
the purposes of aerial locomotion superseded by the 
lighter and more suitable petrol engine, the construc- 
tion of a navigable air ship became vastly more prac- 
ticable. Still, in Sir H. Maxim's opinion, lately ex- 
pressed, " those who seek to navigate the air by 
machines lighter than the air have come, practically, 
to the end of their tether, 55 while, on the other hand, 
" those who seek to navigate the air with machines 
heavier than the air have not even made a start as yet, 
and the possibilities before them are very great in- 
deed. 55 

As to the assertion that the aerial navigators last 
mentioned " have not even made a start as yet, 55 we 
can only say that Sir H. Maxim speaks with far too 
much modesty. His own colossal labours in the 
direction of that mode of aerial flight, which he con- 
siders to be alone feasible, are of the first importance 
and value, and, as far as they have gone, exhaustive. 
Had his experiments been simply confined to his 
classical investigations of the proper form of the screw 
propeller his name would still have been handed down 
as a true pioneer in aeronautics. His work, however, 
covers far wider ground, and he has, in a variety of 
ways, furnished practical and reliable data, which 
must always be an indispensable guide to every future 
worker in the same field. 

Professor Langley, in attacking the same problem, 



250 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

first studied the principle and behaviour of a well- 
known toy — the model invented by Penaud, which, 
driven by the tension of india-rubber, sustains itself 
in the air for a few seconds. He constructed over 
thirty modifications of this model, and spent many 
monthsin trying from these to as certain what he terms 
the " laws of balancing leading to horizontal flight." 
His best endeavours at first, however, showed that 
he needed three or four feet of sustaining surface to 
a pound of weight, whereas he calculated that a bird 
could soar with a surface of less than half a foot to 
the pound. He next proceeded to steam-driven models, 
in whicn for a time he found an insuperable difficulty 
in keeping down the weight, which, in practice, al- 
ways exceeded his calculation ; and it was not till 
the end of 1893 that he felt himself prepared for a fair 
trial. At this time he had prepared a model weighing 
between nine and ten pounds, and he needed only a 
suitable launching apparatus to be used over water. 
The model would, like a bird, require an initial velocity 
imparted to it, and the discovery of a suitable apparatus 
gave him great trouble. For the rest the facilities 
for launching were supplied by a house boat moored 
on the Potomac. Foiled again and again by many 
difficulties, it was not till after repeated failures and 
the lapse of many months, when, as the Professor him- 
self puts it, hope was low, that success finally came. 
It was in the early part of 1896 that a successful flight 
was accomplished in the presence of Dr. Bell, of tele- 
phone fame, and the following is a brief epitome of 
the account that this accomplished scientist contri- 
buted to the columns of Nature : — 



THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE; 251 

" The flying machine, built, apparently, almost 
entirely of metal, was driven by an engine said to 
weigh, with fuel and water, about 25 lbs. the sup- 
porting surface from tip to tip being 12 or 14 feet. 
Starting from a platform about 20 feet high, the 
machine rose at first directly in the face of the wind, 
moving with great steadiness, and subsequently wheel- 
ing in large curves until steam was exhausted, when, 
from a height of 80 or 100 feet, it shortly settled down. 
The experiment was then repeated with similar results. 
Its motion was so steady that a glass of water might 
have remained unspilled. The actual length of flight 
each time, which lasted for a minute and a half, ex- 
ceeded half a mile, while the velocity was between 
twenty and twenty-five miles an hour in a course that 
was constantly taking it [ up hill.' A yet more success- 
ful flight was subsequently made." 

But flight of another nature was being courage- 
ously attempted at this time. Otto Lilienthal, of 
Berlin, in imitation of the motion of birds, constructed 
a flying apparatus which he operated himself, and with 
which he could float down from considerable eleva- 
tions. " The feat," he warns tyros, " requires prac- 
tice. In the beginning the height should be moderate, 
and the wings not too large, or the wind will soon show 
that it is not to be trifled with." The inventor com- 
menced with all due caution, making his first attempt 
over a grass plot from a spring board one metre high, 
and subsequently increasing this height to two and 
a half metres, from which elevation he could safely 
cross the entire grass plot. Later he launched him- 
self from the lower ridges of a hill 250 feet high, when 



252 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

he sailed to a distance of over 250 yards, and this time 
he writes enthusiastically of his self-taught accom- 
plishment : — 

"To those who, from a modest beginning and with 
gradually increased extent and elevation of flight 
have gained full control over the apparatus, it is not 
in the least dangerous to cross deep and broad ravines. 
It is a difficult task to convey to one who has never 
enjoyed aerial flight a clear perception of the exhilarat- 
ing pleasure of this elastic motion. The elevation 
above the ground loses its terrors, because we have 
learned bj^ experience what sure dependence may be 
placed upon the buoyancy of the air." 

As a commentary to the above we extract the fol- 
lowing : — " We have to record the death of Otto 
Lilienthal, whose soaring machine, during a glid- 
ing flight, suddenly tilted over at a height of 
about 60 feet, by which mishap he met an untimely 

death on August 9th, 1896." Mr. O. Chanute, C.E., 

ft 

of Chicago, took up the study of gliding flight at the 
point where Lilienthal left it, and, later, Professor 
Fitzgerald and others. Besides that invented by 
Penaud, other aero-plane models demanding mention 
had been produced by Tatin, Moy, Stringfellow, and 
Lawrence Hargrave, of Australia, the subsequent 
inventor of the well-known cellular kite. These 
models, for the most part, aim at the mechanical solu- 
tion of the problem connected with the soaring flight 
of a bird. 

The theoretical solution of the same problem had 
been attacked by Professor Langley in a masterly 
monograph, entitled " The Internal Work of the 



THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE. 2 S3 

Wind." By painstaking experiment with delicate in- 
struments, specially constructed, the Professor shows 
that wind in general, so far from being, as was com- 
monly assumed, mere air put in motion with an approxi- 
mately uniform velocity in the same strata, is, in 
reality, variable and irregular in its movements be- 
yond anything which had been anticipated, being 
made up, in fact, of a succession of brief pulsations 
in different directions, and of great complexity. These 
pulsations, he argues, if of sufficient amplitude and 
frequency, would be capable, by reason of their own 
" internal work," of sustaining or even raising a suit- 
ably curved surface which was being carried along 
by the main mean air stream. This would account 
for the phenomenon of " soaring." 

Lord Rayleigh, discussing the same problem, pre- 
mises that when a bird is soaring the air cannot be 
moving uniformly and horizontally. Then comes the 
natural question, Is it moving in ascending currents ? 
Lord Rayleigh has frequently noticed such currents, 
particularly above a cliff facing the wind. Again, to 
quote another eminent authority, Major Baden-Powell, 
on an occasion when flying one of his own kites, found 
it getting to so high an angle that it presently rose 
absolutely overhead, with the string perpendicular. 
He then took up a heavy piece of wood, which, when 
tied to the string, began to rise in the air. He satis- 
fied himself that this curious result was solely due to 
a strong uptake of the air. 

But, again, Lord Rayleigh, lending support to 
Professor Langley's argument, points out that the 
apparent cause of soaring may be the non-uniformity 



254 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

of the wind. The upper currents are generally stronger 
than the lower, and it is mechanically possible for a 
bird, taking advantage of two adjacent air streams, 
different in velocity, to maintain itself in air without 
effort on its own part. 

Lord Rayleigh, proceeding to give his views on 
artificial flight, declares the main problem of the flying 
machine to be the problem of the aerial plane. He 
states the case thus : — " Supposing a plane surface to 
be falling vertically at the rate of four miles an hour, 
and also moving horizontally at the rate of twenty 
miles an hour, it might have been supposed that the 
horizontal motion would make no difference to the 
pressure on its under surface which the falling plane 
must experience. We are told, however, that in 
actual trial the horizontal motion much increases the 
pressure under the falling plane, and it is this fact on 
which the possibility of natural and artificial flight 
depends. 

Ere this opinion had been stated by Lord Ray- 
leigh in his discourse on " Flight," at the Royal In- 
stitution, there were already at work upon the aero- 
plane a small army of inventors, of whom it will be 
only possible in a future chapter to mention some. 
Due reference, however, should here be made to Mr. 
W. F. Wenham, of Boston, U.S.A., who had been at 
work on artificial flight for many years, and to whose 
labours in determining whether man's power is suffi- 
cient to raise his own weight Lord Rayleigh paid a 
high tribute. As far back as 1866 Mr. Wenham had 
published a paper on aerial locomotion, in which he 
shows that any imitation by man of the far-extended 







A PARACHUTE DESCENT 
(UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MESSRS. GOUDRON AND SPENCEr). 



THE COMING OF THE FLYING MACHINE. 255 

wings of a bird might be impracticable, the alterna- 
tive being to arrange the necessary length of wing 
as a series of aero-planes, a conception far in advance 
of many theorists of his time. 

But there had been developments in aerostation 
in other lines, and it is time to turn from the some- 
what tedious technicalities of mechanical flight and the 
theory or practice of soaring, to another important 
means for traversing the air — the parachute. This 
aerial machine, long laid aside, was to lend its aid to 
the navigation of the air with a reliability never be- 
fore realised. Professor Baldwin, as he was termed, 
an American aeronaut, arrived in England in the 
summer of 1888, and commenced giving a series of 
exhibitions from the Alexandra Palace with a para- 
chute of his own invention, which, in actual perform- 
ance, seems to have been the most perfect instrument 
of the kind up to that time devised. It was said to 
be about 18 feet in diameter, whereas that of Gar- 
nerin, already mentioned, had a diameter of some 
30 feet, and was distinctly top-heavy, owing to its 
being thus inadequately ballasted ; for it was calcu- 
lated that its enormous size would have served for 
the safe descent, not of one man, but of four or five. 
Baldwin's parachute, on the contrary, was reckoned 
to give safe descent to 250 lbs., which would include 
weight of man and apparatus, and reduce the ultimate 
fall to one not exceeding 8 feet. The parachute was 
attached to the ring of a small balloon of 12,000 cubic 
feet, and the Professor ascended, sitting on a mere 
sling of rope, which did duty for a car. 

Mr. Thomas Moy, who investigated the mechanics 



256 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

of the contrivance, estimated that after a drop of 
16 feet, the upward pressure, amounting to over 2 lb. 
per square foot, would act on a surface of not less 
than 254 square feet. There was, at the time, much 
foolish comment on the great distance which the 
parachute fell before it opened, a complete delusion 
due to the fact that observers failed to see that at 
the moment of separation the balloon itself sprang 
upward. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 

IT has been in the hands of the Spencers that the 
parachute, as also many other practical details 
of aeronautics, has been perfected, and some due 
sketch of the career of this family of eminent aero- 
nauts must be no longer delayed. 

Charles Green had stood godfather to the young- 
est son of his friend and colleague, Mr. Edward Spencer, 
and in later years, as though to vindicate the fact, 
this same son took up the science of aeronautics at 
the point where his father had left it. We find his 
name in the records of the Patent Office of 1868 as 
the inventor of a manumetric flying machine, and 
there are accounts of the flying leaps of several hundred 
feet which he was enabled to take by means of the 
machine he constructed. Again, in 1882 we find him 
an inventor, this time of the patent asbestos fire 
balloon, by means of which the principal danger to 
such balloons was overcome. 

At this point it is needful to make mention 
of the third generation — the several sons who early 
showed their zeal and aptitude for perpetuating the 
family tradition. It was from his school playground 
that the eldest son, Percival, witnessed with intense 
interest what appeared like a drop floating in the sky 
at an immense altitude. This proved to be Simmons's 
R 



258 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

balloon, which had just risen to a vast elevation over 
Cremorne Gardens, after having liberated the unfor- 
tunate De Groof, as mentioned in a former chapter. 
And one may be sure that the terrible reality of the 
disaster that had happened was not lost on the young 
schoolboy. But his wish was to become an aero- 
naut, and from this desire nothing deterred him, so 
that school days were scarcely over before he began 
to accompany his father aloft, and in a very few 
years, i.e. in 1888, he had assumed the full responsi- 
bilities of a professional balloonist. 

It was in this year that Professor Baldwin 
appeared in England, and it is easy to understand 
that the parachute became an object of interest to 
the young Spencer, who commenced on his own 
account a series of trials at the Alexandra Palace, 
and it was now, also, that chance good fortune came 
his way. An Indian gentleman, who was witness of 
his experiments, and convinced that a favourable field 
for their further development existed in his own 
country, proposed to the young aspirant that he should 
accompany him to India, with equipment suited for 
the making of a successful campaign. 

Thus it came about that in the early days of 1889, 
in the height of the season, Mr. Percival Spencer 
arrived at Bombay, and at once commenced profes- 
sional business in earnest. Coal gas being here avail- 
able, a maiden ascent was quickly arranged, and duly 
announced to take place at the Government House, 
Paral, the chief attraction being the parachute descent, 
the first ever attempted in India. 

This preliminary exhibition proving in all ways a 




°- p 

cop 



THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 259 

complete success, Mr. Spencer, after a few repetitions 
of his performance, repaired to Calcutta ; but here 
great difficulties were experienced in the matter of 
gas. The coal gas available was inadequate, and when 
recourse was had to pure hydrogen the supply proved 
too sluggish. At the advertised hour of departure 
the balloon was not sufficiently inflated, while the 
spectators were growing impatient. It was at this 
critical moment that Mr. Spencer resolved on a sur- 
prise. Suddenly casting off the parachute, and seated 
on a mere sling below the half-inflated balloon, with- 
out ballast, without grapnel, and unprovided with 
a valve, he sailed away over the heads of the 
multitude. 

The afternoon was already far advanced, and the 
short tropical twilight soon gave way to darkness, 
when the intrepid voyager disappeared completely 
from sight. Excitement was intense that night in 
Calcutta, and greater still the next day when, as hour 
after hour went by, no news save a series of wild and 
false reports reached the city. Trains arriving from 
the country brought no intelligence, and telegraphic 
enquiries sent in all directions proved fruitless. The 
Great Eastern Hotel, where the young man had been 
staying, was literally besieged for hours by a large 
crowd eager for any tidings. Then the Press gave 
expression to the gloomiest forebodings, and the town 
was in a fever of unrest. From the direction the bal- 
loon had taken it was thought that, even if the aero- 
naut had descended in safety, he could only have 
been landed in the jungle of the Sunderbunds, beset 
with perils, and without a chance of succour. A 



26o THE DOMINION OF THE AIR; 

large reward was offered for reliable information, 
and orders were issued to every likely station to 
organise a search. But ere this was fully carried 
into effect messages were telegraphed to England 
definitely asserting that Mr. Spencer had lost his 
life. For all this, after three days he returned to 
Calcutta, none the worse for the exploit. 

Then the true tale was unravelled. The balloon 
had changed its course from S.E. to E. after passing 
out of sight of Calcutta, and eventually came to earth 
the same evening in the neighbourhood of Hossainabad, 
thirty-six miles distant. During his aerial flight the 
voyager's main trouble had been caused by his cramped 
position, the galling of his sling seat, and the numbing 
effect of cold as he reached high altitudes ; but, as 
twilight darkened into gloom, his real anxiety was 
with respect to his place of landing, for he could with 
difficulty see the earth underneath. He heard the 
distant roll of the waters, caused by the numerous 
creeks which intersect the delta of the Ganges, and 
when darkness completely shut out the view it was 
impossible to tell whether he was over land or sea. 
Fortune favoured him, however, and reaching dry 
ground, he sprang from his seat, relinquishing at the 
same moment his hold of the balloon, which instantly 
disappeared into the darkness. 

Then his wanderings began. He was in an un- 
known country, without knowledge of the language, 
and with only a few rupees in his pocket. Presently, 
however, seeing a light, he proceeded towards it, but 
only to find himself stopped by a creek. Foiled more 
than once in this way, he at length arrived at the 



THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 261 

dwelling of a family of natives, who promptly fled in 
terror. To inspire confidence and prove that he was 
mortal, Mr. Spencer threw his coat over the mud wall 
of the compound, with the result that, after examina- 
tion of the garment, he was received and cared for 
in true native fashion, fed with rice and goat's milk, 
and allowed the use of the verandah to sleep in. He 
succeeded in communing with the natives by dint of 
lead pencil sketches and dumb show, and learned, 
among other things, that he had descended in a little 
clearing surrounded by woods, and bounded by tidal 
creeks, which were infested with alligators. Yet, in 
the end, the waterways befriended him ; for, as he 
was being ferried across, he chanced on his balloon 
sailing down on the tide, recovered it, and used the 
tidal waters for the return journey. 

The greeting upon his arrival in Calcutta was 
enthusiastic beyond description from both Europeans 
and natives. The hero of the adventure was visited 
by rajahs and notables, who vied with each other 
in expressions of welcome, in making presents, even 
inviting him to visit the sacred precincts of their 
zenanas. The promised parachute descent was sub- 
sequently successfully made at Cossipore, and then 
followed a busy, brilliant season, after which the 
wanderer returned to England. By September he 
is in Dublin, and makes the first parachute descent 
ever witnessed in Ireland ; but by November he is in 
Bombay again, whence, proceeding to Calcutta, he 
repeats his success of the year before. Next he visits 
Allahabad, where the same fortune attends him, though 
his balloon flies away in a temporary escape into the 



262 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Jumna. By May he is ascending at Singapore, armed 
here, however, with a cork jacket. 

Hence, flushed with success, he repairs to the Dutch 
Indies, and demonstrates to the Dutch officers the 
use of the balloon in war. As a natural consequence, 
he is moved up to the seat of the Achinese War in 
Sumatra, where, his balloon being moored to the rear 
of an armoured train, an immediate move is made to 
the front, and orders are forthwith telephoned from 
various centres to open fire on the enemy. Mr. 
Spencer, the while accompanied by an officer, makes 
a captive ascent, in which for some time he is actually 
under the enemy's fire. The result of this plucky 
experiment is a most flattering official report. In 
all the above-mentioned ascents he made his own gas 
without a hitch. 

Thence he travels on with the same trusty little 
12,000 cubic feet balloon, the same programme, and 
the same success. This is slightly varied, however, 
at Kobe, Japan, where his impatient craft fairly 
breaks away with him, and, soaring high, flies over- 
head of a man-of-war, and plumps into the water a 
mile out at sea. But " Smartly " was the word. The 
ship's crew was beat to quarters, and within one minute 
a boat was to the rescue. An ascent at Cairo, where 
he made a parachute descent in sight of the Pyramids 
and landed in the desert, completed this oriental tour, 
and home duties necessitated his return to England. 
Among exploits far too many to enumerate may be 
mentioned four several occasions when Mr. Percival 
Spencer has crossed the English Channel. 

It fell to the lot of the second son, Arthur, to carry 



THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 263 

fame into fresh fields. In the year 1897 he visited 
Australia, taking with him two balloons, one of these 
being a noble craft of 80,000 cubic feet, considerably 
larger than any balloon used in England, and the 
singular fate of this aerial monster is deserving of 
mention. 

Its trial trip in the new country was arranged to 
take place on Boxing Day in the Melbourne Exhibi- 
tion ground, and for the lengthy and critical work of 
inflation the able assistance of British bluejackets 
was secured. To all appearance, the main difficulties 
to be provided against were likely to arise simply 
from a somewhat inadequate supply of gas, and on 
this account filling commenced as early as 10 a.m. 
on the morning of the day previous to the exhibition, 
and was continued till 6 o'clock in the afternoon, by 
which time the balloon, being about half full, was 
stayed down with sandbags through the night till 
4 o'clock the next morning, when the inflation was 
again proceeded with without hindrance and appar- 
ently under favourable conditions. The morning 
was beautifully fine, warm, brilliant, and still, and 
so remained until half -past six, when, with startling 
rapidity, there blew up a sudden squall known in 
the country as a " Hot Buster," and in two or three 
minutes' space a terrific wind storm was sweeping the 
ground. A dozen men, aiding a dead weight of 220 
sandbags, endeavoured to control the plunging balloon, 
but wholly without avail. Men and bags together 
were lifted clean up in the air on the windward side, 
and the silk envelope, not yet completely filled, at 
once escaped from the net and, flying upwards to a 



264 THE DOMINION OF THE AIRi 

height estimated at 10,000 feet, came to earth again 
ninety miles away in a score of fragments. Nothing 
daunted, however, Mr. Spencer at once endeavoured 
to retrieve his fortunes, and started straightway for 
the gold-mining districts of Ballarat and Bendigo 
with a hot-air balloon, with which he successfully 
gave a series of popular exhibitions of parachute 
descents. Few aeronauts are more consistently reli- 
able than Mr. Arthur Spencer. A few summers ago 
in this country he was suddenly called upon to give 
proof of his prowess and presence of mind in a very 
remarkable manner. It was at an engagement at 
Reading, where he had been conducting captive 
ascents throughout the afternoon, and was requested 
to conclude the evening with a " right away," in 
w r hich two passengers had agreed to accompany him. 
The balloon had been hauled down for the last time, 
when, by some mistake, the engine used for the pur- 
pose proceeded to work its pump without previously 
disconnecting the hauling gear. The consequence 
of this was that the cable instantly snapped, and 
in a moment the large balloon, devoid of ballast, 
grapnel, or other appliances, and with neck still 
tied, was free, and started skyward. 

The inevitable result of this accident must have 
been that the balloon in a few seconds would 
rise to a height where the expansion of the im- 
prisoned gas would burst and destroy it. Mr. Spencer, 
however, was standing near, and, grasping the situa- 
tion in a moment, caught at the car as it swung 
upwards, and, getting hold, succeeded in drawing 
himself up and so climbing into the ring. Quickly as 



THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 265 

this was done, the balloon was already distended to 
the point of bursting, and only the promptest release 
of gas averted catastrophe. 

Mr. Stanley Spencer made himself early known 
to the world by a series of parachute descents, per- 
formed from the roof of Olympia. It was a bold and 
sensational exhibition, and on the expiration of his 
engagement the young athlete, profiting by home 
training, felt fully qualified to attempt any aerial 
feat connected with the profession of an aeronaut. 
And at this juncture an eminent American cyclist, 
visiting the father's factory, suggested to Stanley a 
business tour in South America. 

As an extra attraction it was proposed that a 
young lady parachutist should be one of the com- 
pany ; so, after a few satisfactory trial exhibitions in 
England, the party made their way to Rio, Brazil. 
Here an ascent was arranged, and by the day 
and hour appointed the balloon was successfully 
inflated with hydrogen, an enormous concourse 
collected, and the lady performer already seated in 
the sling. Then a strange mischance happened. By 
some means, never satisfactorily explained, the young 
woman, at the moment of release, slipped from her seat, 
and the balloon, escaping into the air, turned over and 
fell among the people, who vindictively destroyed it. 
Then the crowd grew ungovernable, and threatened 
the lives of the aeronauts, who eventually were, with 
difficulty, rescued by the soldiery. 

This was a bad start ; but with a spare balloon a 
fresh attempt at an ascent was arranged, though, 
from another cause, with no better success. This 



266 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

time a furious storm arose, before the inflation was 
completed, and the balloon, carrying away, was torn 
to ribbons. Yet a third time, with a hot air balloon 
now, a performance was advertised and successfully 
carried out ; but, immediately after, Mr. Spencer's 
American friend succumbed to yellow fever, and the 
young man, being thrown on his own resources, had 
to fight his own way until his fortunes had been 
sufficiently restored to return to England. 

A few months later he set sail for Canada, where 
for several months he had a most profitable career, 
on one occasion only meeting with some difficulty. 
He was giving an exhibition on Prince Edward's 
Island, not far from the sea, but on a day so 
calm that he did not hesitate to ascend. On reaching 
3,000 feet, however, he was suddenly caught by a 
strong land breeze, which, ere he could reach the 
water, had carried him a mile out to sea, and here he 
was only rescued after a long interval, during which 
he had become much exhausted in his attempts to 
save his parachute from sinking. 

Early in 1892 our traveller visited South Africa 
with a hot air balloon, and, fortune continuing to 
favour him, he subsequently returned to Canada, and 
proceeded thence to the United States and Cuba. It 
was at Havannah that popular enthusiasm in his 
favour ran so high that he was presented with a medal 
by the townsfolk. It was from here also that, a 
little while after, tidings of his own death reached him, 
together with most gratifying obituary notices. It 
would seem that, after his departure, an adventurer, 
attempting to personate him, met with his death. 



THE STORY OF THE SPENCERS. 267 

In November, 1897, he followed his elder brother's 
footsteps to the East, and exhibited in Calcutta, 
Singapore, Canton, and also Hong-Kong, where, for 
the first and only time in his experience, he met with 
serious accident, He was about to ascend for the 
ordinary parachute performance with a hot air bal- 
loon, which was being held down by about thirty 
men, one among them being a Chinaman possessed 
of much excitability and very long finger nails. By 
means of these latter the man contrived to gouge 
a considerable hole in the fabric of the balloon. 
Mr. Spencer, to avoid a disappointment, risked 
an ascent, and it was not till the balloon had 
reached 600 feet that the rent developed into a long 
slit, and so brought about a sudden fall to earth. 
Alighting on the side of a mountain, Mr. Spencer lay 
helpless with a broken leg till the arrival of some 
British bluejackets, who conveyed him to the nearest 
surgeon, when, after due attention, he was sent 
home. Other remarkable exploits, which Mr. Stanley 
Spencer shared with Dr. Berson and with the writer 
and his daughter, will be recorded later. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION. 

AFTER Mr. Coxwell's experiments at Aldershot in 
l 1862 the military balloon, as far as England was 
concerned, remained in abeyance for nine long years, 
when the Government appointed a Commission to 
enquire into its utility, and to conduct further experi- 
ments. The members of this committee were Colonel 
Noble, R.E., Sir F. Abel, Captain Lee, R.E., assisted 
by Captain Elsdale, R.E., and Captain (now Colonel) 
Templer. Yet another nine years, however, elapsed 
before much more was heard of this modernised 
military engine. 

But about the beginning of the 'eighties the Govern- 
ment had become fully alive to the importance of the 
subject, and Royal Engineers at Woolwich grew busy 
with balloon manufacture and experiment. Soon " the 
sky around London became speckled with balloons." 
The method of making so-called pure hydrogen by 
passing steam over red-hot iron was fully tested, and 
for a time gained favour. The apparatus, weighing 
some three tons, was calculated to be not beyond the 
carrying powers of three service waggons, while it 
was capable of generating enough gas to inflate two 
balloons in twenty-four hours, a single inflation hold- 
ing good, under favourable circumstances, for a long 
period. 




FILLING A MILITARY BALLOON. 



Photo by Argent Archer, Kensington. 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION. 269 

At the Brighton Volunteer Review of 1880, Cap- 
tain Templer, with nine men, conducted the operations 
of a captive reconnoitring balloon. This was inflated 
at the Lewes gas works, and then towed two and a half 
miles across a river, a railway, and a line of telegraph 
wires, after which it was let up to a height of 1,500 
feet, whence, it w T as stated, that so good a view was 
obtained that " every man was clearly seen." Be 
it remembered, however, that the country was not 
the South African veldt, and every man was in the 
striking English uniform of that date. 

Just at this juncture came the Egyptian War, and 
it will be recalled that in the beginning of that 
war balloons were conspicuous by their absence. The 
difficulties of reconnaissance were keenly felt and 
commented on, and among other statements we find 
the following in the war intelligence of the Times : — 

" As the want of a balloon equipment has been 
mentioned in letters from Egypt, it may be stated 
that all the War Department balloons remain in store 
at the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, but have been 
recently examined and found perfectly serviceable." 
An assertion had been made to the effect that the 
nature of the sand in Egypt would impede the trans- 
port of the heavy material necessary for inflation. 
At last, however, the order came for the despatch 
of the balloon equipment to the front, and though 
this arrived long after Tel-el-Kebir, yet it is recorded 
that the first ascent in real active service in the British 
Army took place on the 25th of March, 1885, at Suakin, 
and balloons becoming regarded as an all-important 
part of the equipment of war, they were sent out in 



270 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

the Bechuanaland Expedition under Sir Charles 
Warren, the supply of gas being shipped to Cape 
Town in cylinders. 

It was at this period that, according to Mr. Cox- 
well, Lord Wolseley made ascents at home in a war 
balloon to form his own personal opinion of their 
capabilities, and, expressing this opinion to one of 
his staff, said that had he been able to employ balloons 
in the earlier stages of the Soudan campaign the affair 
would not have lasted as many months as it did years. 
This statement, however, should be read in conjunc- 
tion with another of the same officer in the " Soldier's 
Pocket Book," that " in a windy country balloons 
are useless." In the Boer War the usefulness of the 
balloon was frequently tested, more particularly 
during the siege of Ladysmith, when it was deemed 
of great value in directing the fire of the British artil- 
lery, and again in Buller's advance, where the balloon 
is credited with having located a " death-trap " of 
the enemy at Spion Kop. Other all-important service 
was rendered at Magersfontein. The Service balloon 
principally used was made of goldbeaters' skin, con- 
taining about 10,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, which 
had been produced by the action of sulphuric acid 
on zinc, and compressed in steel cylinders. A special 
gas factory was, for the purpose of the campaign, 
established at Cape Town. 

It is here that reference must be made to some 
of the special work undertaken by Mr. Eric S. Bruce, 
which dealt with the management of captive balloons 
under different conditions, and with a system of sig- 
nalling thus "2 rendered feasible. Mr. Bruce, who, 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION. 271 

since Major Baden-Powell's retirement from the office, 
has devoted his best energies as secretary to the 
advancement of the British Aeronautical Society, was 
the inventor of the system of electric balloon signal- 
ling which he supplied to the British Government, 
as well as to the Belgian and Italian Governments. 
This system requires but a very small balloon, made of 
three or four thicknesses of goldbeaters' skin, measur- 
ing from 7 to 10 feet in diameter, and needing only 
two or three gas cylinders for inflation. Within the 
balloon, which is sufficiently translucent, are placed 
several incandescent lamps in metallic circuit, with 
a source of electricity on the ground. This source 
of electricity may consist of batteries of moderate 
size or a portable hand dynamo. In the circuit is 
placed an apparatus for making and breaking con- 
tact rapidly, and by varying the duration of the flashes 
in the balloon telegraphic messages may be easily 
transmitted. To overcome the difficulty of un- 
steadiness, under circumstances of rough weather, in 
the captive balloon which carried the glow lamps, 
Mr. Bruce experimented with guy ropes, and gave a 
most successful exhibition of their efficiency before 
military experts at Stamford Bridge grounds, though 
a stiff wind was blowing at the time. 

It must be perfectly obvious, however, that a 
captive balloon in a wind is greatly at a disadvantage, 
and to counteract this, attempts have been made in 
the direction of a combination between the balloon 
and a kite. This endeavour has been attended with 
some measure of success in the German army. Mr. 
Douglas Archibald, in England, was one of the first 



272 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

to advocate the kite balloon. In 1888 he called atten- 
tion to the unsatisfactory behaviour of captive balloons 
in variable winds, dropping with every gust and rising 
again with a lull. In proof he described an expedient 
of Major Templer's, where an attempt was being made 
to operate a photographic camera hoisted by two 
tandem kites. " The balloon," he writes, " went up 
majestically, and all seemed very satisfactory until 
a mile of cable had been run out, and the winder 
locked." It was then that troubles began which 
threatened the wreckage of the apparatus, and Mr. 
Archibald, in consequence, strongly recommended a 
kite balloon at that time. Twelve years later the 
same able experimentalist, impressed with the splendid 
work done by kites alone for meteorological purposes 
at least, allowed that he was quite content to " let 
the kite balloon go by." 

But the German school of aeronauts were doing 
bigger things than making trials with kite balloons. 
The German Society for the Promotion of Aerial 
Navigation, assisted by the Army Balloon Corps, were 
busy in 1888, when a series of important ascents were 
commenced. Under the direction of Dr. Assmann, 
the energetic president of the aeronautical society 
above named, captive ascents were arranged in con- 
nection with free ascents for meteorological purposes, 
and it was thus practicable to make simultaneous 
observations at different levels. These experiments, 
which were largely taken up on the Continent, led 
to others of yet higher importance, in which the 
unmanned balloon took a part. But the Continental 
annals of this date contain one unhappy record of 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION 273 

another nature, the recounting of which will, at least, 
break the monotony attending mere experimental 
details. 

In October, 1893, Captain Charbonnet, an en- 
thusiastic French aeronaut, resolved on spending his 
honeymoon, with the full consent of his bride, in a 
prolonged balloon excursion. The start was to be 
made from Turin, and, the direction of travel lying 
across the Alps, it was the hope of the voyagers even- 
tually to reach French territory. . The ascent was 
made in perfect safety, as was also the first descent, at 
the little village of Piobesi, ten miles away. Here a 
halt was made for the night, and the next morning, 
when a fresh start was determined on, two young 
Italians, Signori Botto and Durando, were taken on 
board as assistants, for the exploit began to assume 
an appearance of some gravity, and this the more so 
when storm clouds began brewing. At an altitude 
of 10,000 feet cross-currents were encountered, and 
the course becoming obscured the captain descended 
to near the earth, where he discovered himself to be 
in dangerous proximity to gaunt mountain peaks. 
On observing this, he promptly cast out sand so liber- 
ally that the balloon rose to a height approaching 
20,000 feet, when a rapid descent presently began, 
and refused to be checked, even with the expenditure 
of all available ballast. 

All the while the earth remained obscured, but, 
anticipating a fall among the mountains, Captain 
Charbonnet bade his companions lie down in the car 
while he endeavoured to catch sight of some landmark ; 
but, quite suddenly, the balloon struck some mountain 
s 



274 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

slope with such force as to throw the captain back 
into the car with a heavy blow over the eye ; then, 
bounding across a gulley, it struck again and yet 
again, falling and rebounding between rocky walls, 
till it settled on a steep and snowy ridge. Darkness 
was now closing in, and the party, without food or 
proper shelter, had to pass the night as best they 
might on the bare spot where they fell, hoping for 
encouragement with the return of day. But dawn 
showed them to be on a dangerous peak, 10,000 feet 
high, whence they must descend by their own un- 
assisted efforts. After a little clambering the cap- 
tain, who was in a very exhausted state, fell through 
a hidden crevasse, fracturing his skull sixty feet below. 
The remaining three struggled on throughout the day, 
and had to pass a second night on the mountain, this 
time without covering. On the third day they met 
with a shepherd, who conducted them with difficulty 
to the little village of Balme. 

This story, by virtue of its romance, finds a place 
in these pages ; but, save for its tragic ending, it 
hardly stands alone. Ballooning enterprise and ad- 
venture were growing every year more and more 
common on the Continent. In Scandinavia we find 
the names of Andree, Fraenkal, and Strindberg ; in 
Denmark that of Captain Rambusch. Berlin and 
Paris had virtually become the chief centres of the 
development of ballooning as a science. In the 
former city a chief among aeronauts had arisen in 
Dr. A. Berson, who, in December, 1894, not only 
reached 30,000 feet, ascending alone, but at that 
height sustained himself sufficiently, by inhaling 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION 275 

oxygen, to take systematic observations throughout 
the entire voyage of five hours. The year before, in 
company with Lieutenant Gross, he barely escaped 
with his life, owing to tangled ropes getting foul of 
the valve. Toulet and those who accompanied him 
lost their lives near Brussels. Later Wolfert and his 
engineer were killed near Berlin, while Johannsen 
and Loyal fell into the Sound. Thus ever fresh and 
more extended enterprise was embarked upon with 
good fortune and ill. In fact, it had become evident 
to all that the Continent afforded facilities for the 
advancement of aerial exploration which could be 
met with in no other parts of the world, America only 
excepted. And it was at this period that the ex- 
pedient of the ballon sonde, or unmanned balloon, was 
happily thought of. One of these balloons, the 
" Cirrus," among several trials, rose to a height, self- 
registered, of 61,000 feet, while a possible greater 
height has been accorded to it. On one occasion, 
ascending from Berlin, it fell in Western Russia, on 
another in Bosnia. Then, in 1896, at the Meteoro- 
logical Conference at Paris, with Mascart as Presi- 
dent, Gustave Hermite, with characteristic ardour, 
introduced a scheme of national ascents with balloons 
manned and unmanned, and this scheme was soon 
put in effect under a commission of famous names — 
Andree, Assmann, Berson, Besangon, Cailletet, Erk, 
de Fonvielle, Hergesell, Hermite, Jaubert, Pomotzew 
(of St. Petersburg), and Rotch (of Boston, Mass.). 

In November, 1896, five manned balloons and three 
unmanned ascended simultaneously from France, 
Germany, and Russia; The next year saw, with the 



276 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

enterprise of these nations, the co-operation of Austria 
and Belgium. Messrs. Hermite and Besanfon, both 
French aeronauts, were the first to make practical 
trial of the method of sounding the upper air by un- 
manned balloons, and, as a preliminary attempt, 
dismissed from Paris a number of small balloons, a 
large proportion of which were recovered, having re- 
turned to earth after less than ioo miles' flight. Larger 
paper balloons were now constructed, capable of carry- 
ing simple self-recording instruments, also postcards, 
which became detached at regular intervals by the 
burning away of slow match, and thus indicated the 
path of the balloon. The next attempt was more 
ambitious, made with a goldbeaters' skin balloon 
containing 4,000 cubic feet of gas, and carrying auto- 
matic instruments of precision. This balloon fell 
in the Department of the Yonne, and was returned 
to Paris with the instruments, which remained un- 
injured, and which indicated that an altitude of 49,000 
feet had been reached, and a minimum temperature 
of— 6o° encountered. Yet larger balloons of the same 
nature were then experimented with in Germany, 
as well as France. 

A lack of public support has crippled the attempts 
of experimentalists in this country, but abroad this 
method of aerial exploration continues to gain favour. 

Distinct from, and supplementing, the records 
obtained by free balloons, manned or unmanned, are 
those to be gathered from an aerostat moored to earth. 
It is here that the captive balloon has done good 
service to meteorology, as we have shown, but still 
more so has the high-flying kite. It must long have 




M. BESANCON AND FARMAN 
ABOUT TO' ASCEND. 

(Showing Scientific Instruments 

carried in the Car.) 



Photo by D. Manfredi. 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION. 277 

been recognised that instruments placed on or near 
the ground are insufficient for meteorological purposes, 
and, as far back as 1749, we find Dr. Wilson, of Glas- 
gow, employing kites to determine the upper currents, 
and to carry thermometers into higher strata of the 
air. Franklin's kite and its application is matter 
of history. Many since that period made experiments 
more or less in earnest to obtain atmospheric observa- 
tions by means of kites, but probably the first in 
England, at least to obtain satisfactory results, was 
Mr. Douglas Archibald, who, during the eighties, was 
successful in obtaining valuable wind measurements, 
as also other results, including aerial photographs, 
at varying altitudes up to i 3 ooo or 1,200 feet. From 
that period the records of serious and systematic kite 
flying must be sought in America. Mr. W. A. Eddy 
was one of the pioneers, and a very serviceable tail- 
less kite, in which the cross-bar is bowed away from 
the wind, is his invention, and has been much in use. 
Mr. Eddy established his kite at Blue Hill — the now 
famous kite observatory — and succeeded in lifting 
self-recording meteorological instruments to consider- 
able heights. The superiority of readings thus ob- 
tained is obvious from the fact that fresh air-streams 
are constantly playing on the instruments. 

A year or two later a totally dissimilar kite was 
introduced by Mr. Lawrence Hargrave, of Sydney, 
Australia. This invention, which has proved of the 
greatest utility and efficiency, would, from its appear- 
ance, upset all conventional ideas of what a kite 
should be, resembling in its simplest form a mere box, 
minus the back and front. Nevertheless, these kites, 



278 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

in their present form, have carried instruments to 
heights of upwards of two miles, the restraining line 
being fine steel piano wire. 

But another and most efficient kite, admirably 
adapted for many most important purposes, is that 
invented by Major Baden - Powelh The main 
objects originally aimed at in the construction of 
this kite related to military operations, such as sig- 
nalling, photography, and the raising of a man to an 
elevation for observational purposes. In the opinion 
of the inventor, who is a practised aeronaut, a wind 
of over thirty miles an hour renders a captive balloon 
useless, while a kite under such conditions should be 
capable of taking its place in the field. Describing 
his early experiments, Major, then Captain, Baden- 
Powell, stated that in 1894, after a number of failures, 
he succeeded with a hexagonal structure of cambric, 
stretched on a bamboo framework 36 feet high, in 
lifting a man — not far, but far enough to prove that 
his theories were right. Later on, substituting a 
number of small kites for one big one, he was, on 
several occasions, raised to a height of 100 feet, and 
had sent up sand bags, weighing 9 stone, to 300 feet, 
at which height they remained suspended nearly a 
whole day. 

This form of kite, which has been further developed, 
has been used in the South African campaign in 
connection with wireless telegraphy for the taking 
of photographs at great heights, notably at Modder 
River, and for other purposes. 

It has been claimed that the first well-authenticated 
occasion of a man being raised by a kite was when at 



NEW DEPARTURES IN AEROSTATION. 279 

Pirbright Camp a Baden-Powell kite, 30 feet high, 
flown by two lines, from which a basket was suspended, 
took a man up to a height of 10 feet. It is only fair, 
however, to state that it is related that more than fifty 
years ago a lady was lifted some hundred feet by a 
great kite constructed by one George Pocock, whose 
machine was designed for an observatory in war, and 
also for drawing carriages along highways. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

andr£e and nis voyages. 

AMONG many suggestions, alike important and 
> original, due to Major Baden-Powell, and 
coming within the field of aeronautics, is one having 
reference to the use of balloons for geographical research 
generally and more particularly for the exploration of 
Egypt, which, in his opinion, is a country possessing 
many most desirable qualifications on the score of pre- 
vailing winds, of suitable base, and of ground adapted 
for such steering as may be effected with a trail rope. 
At the Bristol meeting of the British Association the 
Major thus propounded his method : — " I should sug- 
gest several balloons, one of about 60,000 cubic feet, 
and, say, six smaller ones of about 7,000 cubic feet ; 
then, if one gets torn or damaged, the others might 
remain intact. After a time, when gas is lost, one of 
the smaller ones could be emptied into the others, 
and the exhausted envelope discharged as ballast ; 
the smaller balloons would be easier to transport by 
porters than one big one, and they could be more easily 
secured on the earth during contrary winds. Over 
the main balloon a light awning might be rigged to 
neutralise, as far as possible, the changes of tempera- 
ture. A lightning conductor to the top of the balloon 
might be desirable. A large sail would be arranged, 
and a bifurcated guide rope attached to the end of a 



AN DREE AND HIS VOYAGES. 281 

horizontal pole would form an efficient means of steer- 
ing. The car would be boat-shaped and waterproof, 
so that it could be used for a return journey down a 
river. Water tanks would be fitted." 

The reasonableness of such a scheme is beyond 
question, even without the working calculations with 
which it is accompanied ; but, ere these words were 
spoken, one of the most daring explorers that the 
world has known had begun to put in practice a yet 
bolder and rasher scheme of his own. The idea of 
reaching the North Pole by means of balloons appears 
to have been entertained many years ago. In a curi- 
ous work, published in Paris in 1863 by Delaville 
Dedreux, there is a suggestion for reaching the North 
Pole by an aerostat which should be launched from 
the nearest accessible point, the calculation being 
that the distance from such a starting place to the 
Pole and back again would be only some 1,200 miles, 
which could be covered in two days, supposing only 
that there could be found a moderate and favourable 
wind in each direction. Mr. C. G. Spencer also wrote 
on the subject, and subsequently Commander Cheyne 
proposed a method of reaching the Pole by means of 
triple balloons. A similar scheme was advocated in 
yet more serious earnest by M. Hermite in the early 
eighties. 

Some ten years later than this M. S. A. Andree, 
having obtained sufficient assistance, took up the 
idea with the determined intention of pushing it to 
a practical issue. He had already won his spurs as 
an aeronaut, as may be briefly told. In October, 1893, 
when making an ascent for scientific purposes, his 



282 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

balloon got carried out over the Baltic. It may have 
been the strength of the wind that had taken him by 
surprise ; but, there being now no remedy, it was 
clearly the speed and persistence of the wind that 
alone could save him. If a chance vessel could not, or 
would not, " stand by," he must make the coast of 
Finland or fall in the sea, and several times the fall 
in the sea seemed imminent as his balloon commenced 
dropping. This threatened danger induced him to 
cast away his anchor, after which the verge of the 
Finland shore was nearly reached, when a change of 
wind began to carry him along the rocky coast, just 
as night was setting in. 

Recognising his extreme danger, Andree stood on 
the edge of the car, with a bag of ballast ready for 
emergencies. He actually passed over an island, on 
which was a building with a light ; but failed to effect 
a landing, and so fell in the sea on the farther side ; 
but, the balloon presently righting itself, Andree, now 
greatly exhausted, made his last effort, and as he rose 
over the next cliff jumped for his life. It was past 
7 p.m. when he found himself once again on firm 
ground, but with a sprained leg and with no one within 
call. Seeking what shelter he could, he lived out the 
long night, and, being now scarce able to stand, took off 
his clothes and waved them for a signal. This signal 
was not seen, yet shortly a boat put off from an island 
— the same that he had passed the evening before — 
and rowed towards him. The boatman overnight 
had seen a strange sail sweeping over land and sea, 
and he had come in quest of it, bringing timely suc- 
cour to the castaway. 



AN DREE AND HIS VOYAGES. 283 

Briefly stated, Andree's grand scheme was to 
convey a suitable balloon, with means for inflating it, 
as also all necessary equipment, as far towards the 
Pole as a ship could proceed, and thence, waiting 
for a favourable wind, to sail by sky until the region 
of the Pole should be crossed, and some inhabited 
country reached beyond. The balloon was to be kept 
near the earth, and steered, as far as this might be 
practicable, by means of a trail rope. The balloon, 
which had a capacity of nearly 162,000 cubic feet, was 
made in Paris, and was provided with a rudder sail 
and an arrangement whereby the hang of the trail 
rope could be readily shifted to different positions on 
the ring. Further, to obviate unnecessary diffusion 
and loss of gas at the mouth, the balloon was fitted 
with a lower valve, which would only open at a moder- 
ate pressure, namely, that of four inches of water. 

All preparations were completed by the summer of 
1896, and on June 7th the party embarked at Gothen- 
burg with all necessaries on board, arriving at Spitz- 
bergen on June 21st. Andree, who was to be ac- 
companied on his aerial voyage by two companions, 
M. Nils Strindberg and Dr. Ekholm, spent some time 
in selecting a spot that would seem suitable for their 
momentous start, and this was finally found 
on Dane's Island, where their cargo was accordingly 
landed. 

The first operation was the erection of a wooden 
shed, the materials for which they had brought with 
them, as a protection from the wind. It was a work 
which entailed some loss of time, after which the gas 
apparatus had to be got into order, so that, in spite 



284 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

of all efforts, it was the 27th of July before the bal- 
loon was inflated and in readiness. 

A member of an advance party of an eclipse ex- 
pedition arriving in Spitzbergen at this period, and 
paying a visit to Andree for the purpose of taking 
him letters, wrote : — " We watched him deal out 
the letters to his men. They are all volunteers, 
and include seven sea captains, a lawyer, and other 
people — some forty in all. Andree chaffed each man 
to whom he gave a letter, and all were as merry as 
crickets over the business. . . . We spent our time 
in watching preparations. The vaseline (for soak- 
ing the guide ropes) caught fire to-day, but, luckily, 
no rope was in the pot." 

But the wind as yet was contrary, and day after 
day passed without any shift to a favourable quarter, 
until the captain of the ship which had conveyed 
them was compelled to bring matters to an issue by 
saying that they must return home without delay if 
he was to avoid getting frozen in for the winter. The 
balloon had now remained inflated for twenty-one 
days, and Dr. Ekholm, calculating that the leakage 
of gas amounted to nearly 1 per cent, per day, became 
distrustful of the capability of such a vessel to cope 
with such a voyage as had been aimed at. The party 
had now no choice but to return home with their 
balloon, leaving, however, the shed and gas-generating 
apparatus for another occasion. 

This occasion came the following summer, when 
the dauntless explorers returned to their task, leaving 
Gothenburg on May 28th, 1897, in a vessel lent by the 
King of Sweden, and reaching Dane's Island on the 



AN DREE AND HIS VOYAGES. 285 

30th of the same month. Dr. Ekholm had retired 
from the enterprise, but in his place were two volun- 
teers, Messrs. Frankel and Svedenborg, the latter as 
" odd man," to fill the place of any of the other three 
who might be prevented from making the final venture. 

It was found that the shed had suffered during 
the winter, and some time was spent in making the 
repairs and needful preparation, so that the month 
of June was half over before all was in readiness for 
the inflation. This operation was, then accomplished 
in four days, and by midnight of June 22nd the bal- 
loon was at her moorings, full and in readiness ; but, 
as in the previous year, the wind was contrary, and 
remained so for nearly three weeks. This, of course, 
was a less serious matter, inasmuch as the voyagers 
were a month earlier with their preparation, but so 
long a delay must needs have told prejudicially against 
the buoyancy of the balloon, and Andree is hardly 
to be blamed for having, in the end, committed him- 
self to a wind that was not wholly favourable. 
; • The wind, if entirely from the right direction, 
should have been due south, but on July nth it 
had veered to a direction somewhat west of south, 
and Andree, tolerating no further delay, seized this 
as his best opportunity, and with a wind " whistling 
through the woodwork of the shed and flapping the 
canvas," accompanied by Frankel and Svedenborg, 
started on his ill-fated voyage. 

A telegram which Andree wrote for the Press at 
that epoch ran thus : — " At this moment, 2.30 p.m., 
we are ready to start. We shall probably be driven 
in a north-north-easterly direction." 



286 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

On July 22nd a carrier pigeon was recovered by 
the fishing boat Aiken between North Cape, Spitz- 
bergen, and Seven Islands, bearing a message, " ]xx\y 
13th, 12.30 p.m., 82 2' north lat., 15 5' east long. 
Good journey eastward. All goes well on board. 
Andree." 

Not till August 31st was there picked up in the 
Arctic zone a buoy, which is preserved in the Museum 
of Stockholm. It bears the message, " Buoy No. 4. 
First to be thrown out. nth July, 10 p.m., Green- 
wich mean time. All well up till now. We are pur- 
suing our course at an altitude of about 250 metres. 
Direction at first northerly io° east ; later, northerly 
45 east. Four carrier pigeons were despatched at 
5.40 p.m. They flew westwards. We are now above 
the ice, which is very cut up in all directions. Weather 
splendid. In excellent spirits. — Andree, Svedenborg, 
Frankel. (Postscript later on.) Above the clouds, 
7.45, Greenwich mean time." 

According to Reuter, the Anthropological and 
Geological Society at Stockholm received the follow- 
ing telegram from a ship owner at Mandal : — " Cap- 
tain Hueland, of the steamship Vaagen, who arrived 
there on Monday morning, reports that when off 
Kola Fjord, Iceland, in 65 34' north lat., 21 28' 
west long., on May 14th, he found a drifting buoy, 
marked ' No. 7.' Inside the buoy was a capsule, 
marked ' Andree's Polar Expedition,' containing a 
slip of paper, on which was given the following : 
' Drifting Buoy No. 7. This buoy was thrown out 
from Andree's balloon on July nth, 1897, 10.55 p.m., 
Greenwich mean time, 82 north lat., 25 east Ion**. 



AN DREE AND HIS VOYAGES. 287 

We are at an altitude of 600 metres. All well. — 
Andree, Svedenborg, Frankel.' " 

Commenting on the first message, Mr. Percival 
Spencer says : — " I cannot place reliance upon the 
accuracy of either the date or else the lat. and long, 
given, as I am confident that the balloon would have 
travelled a greater distance in two days." It should 
be noted that Dane's Island lies in 79 30' north lat. 
and io° io' east long. 

Mr. Spencer's opinion, carefully considered and 
expressed eighteen months afterwards, will be read 
with real interest : — 

' The distance from Dane's Island to the Pole 
is about 750 miles, and to Alaska on the other side 
about 1,500 miles. The course of the balloon, how- 
ever, was not direct to the Pole, but towards Franz 
Josef Land (about 600 miles) and to the Siberian 
coast (another 800 miles). Judging from the descrip- 
tion of the wind at the start, and comparing it with 
my own ballooning experience, I estimate its speed 
as 40 miles per hour, and it will, therefore, be evident 
that a distance of 2,000 miles would be covered in 
50 hours, that is two days and two hours after the 
start. I regard all theories as to the balloon being 
capable of remaining in the air for a month as illusory. 
No free balloon has ever remained aloft for more than 
36 hours, but with the favourable conditions at the 
northern regions (where the sun does not set and where 
the temperature remains equable) a balloon might 
remain in the air for double the length of time which 
I consider ample, for the purpose of Polar explora- 
tion." 



288 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

A record of the direction of the wind was made 
after Andree's departure, and proved that there was 
a fluctuation in direction from S.W. to N.W., in- 
dicating that the voyagers may have been borne 
across towards Siberia. This, however, can be but 
surmise. All aeronauts of experience know that it 
is an exceedingly difficult manoeuvre to keep a trail 
rope dragging on the ground if it is desirable to pre- 
vent contact with the earth on the one hand, or on 
the other to avoid loss of gas. A slight increase of 
temperature or drying off of condensed moisture 
may — indeed, is sure to after a while — lift the rope 
off the ground, in which case the balloon, rising into 
upper levels, may be borne away on currents which 
may be of almost any direction, and of which the 
observer below may know nothing. As to the actual 
divergence from the wind's direction which a trail 
rope and side sail might be hoped to effect, it may be 
confidently stated that, notwithstanding some won- 
derful accounts that have gone abroad, it must not 
be relied on as commonly amounting to much more 
than one or, at the most, two points. 

Although it is to be feared that trustworthy in- 
formation as to the ultimate destination of Andree's 
balloon may never be gained, yet we may safely 
state that his ever famous, though regrettable, voyage 
was the longest in duration ever attained. At the 
end of 48 hours his vessel would seem to have been 
still well up and going strong. The only other pre- 
vious voyage that had in duration of travel approached 
this record was that made by M. Mallet, in 1892, and 
maintained for 36 hours. Next we may mention 



ANDREE AND HIS VOYAGES 289 

that of M. Herve, in 1886, occupying 24J hours, 
which feat, however, was almost equalled by the 
great Leipzig balloon in 1897, which, with eight people 
in the car, remained up for 24^ hours, and did not 
touch earth till 1,032 miles had been traversed. 

The fabric of Andree's balloon may not be con- 
sidered to have been the best for such an exceptional 
purpose. Dismissing considerations of cost, gold- 
beaters' skin would doubtless have been more suit- 
able. The military balloons at Aldershot are made 
of this, and one such balloon has been known to re- 
main inflated for three months with very little loss. 
It is conceivable, therefore, that the chances of the 
voyagers, whose ultimate safety depended so largely 
upon the staying power of their aerial vessel, might 
have been considerably increased. 

One other expedient, wholly impracticable, but 
often seriously discussed, may be briefly referred to, 
namely, the idea of taking up apparatus for pumping 
gas into metal receivers as the voyage proceeds, in 
order to raise or lower a balloon, and in this way to 
prolong its life. Mr. Wenham has investigated the 
point with his usual painstaking care, and reduced its 
absurdity to a simple calculation, which should serve 
to banish for good such a mere extravagant theory. 

Suppose, he says, the gas were compressed to 
one-twentieth part of its bulk, which would mean a 
pressure within its receiver of 300 lbs. per square 
inch, and that each receiver had a capacity of 1 cubic 
foot, while for safety sake it was made of steel plates 
one-twentieth of an inch thick, then each receiver 
would weigh 10 lbs., and to liberate 1,000 feet clearly 
T 



zgo THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

a weight of 500 lbs. would have to be taken up. Now, 
when it is considered that 1,000 cubic feet of hydrogen 
will only lift 72 lbs., the scheme begins to look hope- 
less enough. But when the question of the pumping 
apparatus, to be worked by hand, is contemplated, 
the difficulties introduced become yet more insuper- 
able. The only feasible suggestion with respect to 
the use of compressed gas is that of taking on board 
charged cylinders under high pressure, which, after 
being discharged to supply the leakage of the balloon, 
could, in an uninhabited country, be cast out as bal- 
last. It will need no pointing out, however, that such 
an idea would be practically as futile as another 
which has gravely been recommended, namely, that 
of heating the gas of the balloon by a Davy lamp, so 
as to increase its buoyancy at will. Major Baden- 
Powell has aptly described this as resembling " an 
attempt to warm a large hall with a small spirit lamp." 
In any future attempt to reach the Pole by bal- 
loon it is not unreasonable to suppose that wireless 
telegraphy will be put in practice to maintain com- 
munication with the base. The writer's personal 
experience of the possibilities afforded by this mode 
of communication, yet in its infancy, will be given 
shortly. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE MODERN AIRSHIP. — IN SEARCH OF THE LEONIDS. 

IN the autumn of 1898 the aeronautical world was 
interested to hear that a young Brazilian, M. Santos 
Dumont, had completed a somewhat novel dirigible 
balloon, cylindrical in shape, with conical ends, 83 
feet long by 12 feet in diameter, holding 6,500 cubic 
feet of gas, and having a small compensating balloon 
of 880 cubic feet capacity. For a net was sub- 
stituted a simple contrivance, consisting of two side 
pockets, running the length of the balloon, and con- 
taining battens of wood, to which were affixed the sus- 
pension cords, bands being also sewn over the upper 
part of the balloon connecting the two pockets. The 
most important novelty, however, was the introduction 
of a small petroleum motor similar to those used 
for motor tricycles. 

The inventor ascended in this balloon, inflated 
with pure hydrogen, from the Jardin d'Acclimata- 
tion, Paris, and circled several times round the large 
captive balloon in the Gardens, after which, moving 
towards the Bois de Boulogne, he made several sweeps 
of 100 yards radius. Then the pump of the com- 
pensator caused the engine to stop, and the machine, 
partially collapsing, fell to the ground. Santos Du- 
mont was somewhat shaken, but announced his 
intention of making other trials. In this bold and 



292 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

successful attempt there was clear indication of a fresh 
phase in the construction of the airship, consisting 
in the happy adoption of the modern type of petro- 
leum motor. Two other flying machines were heard 
of about this date, one by Professor Giampietre, 
of Pavia, cigar-shaped, driven by screws, and rigged 
with masts and sails. The other, which had been 
constructed and tested in strict privacy, was the 
invention of a French engineer, M. Ader, and was 
imagined to imitate the essential structure of a bird. 
Two steam motors of 20-horse power supplied the 
power. It was started by being run on the ground 
on small wheels attached to it, and it was claimed 
that before a breakdown occurred the machine had 
actually raised itself into the air. 

Of Santos Dumont the world was presently to 
know more, and the same must be said of another in- 
ventor, Dr. Barton, of Beckenham, who shortly com- 
pleted an airship model carrying aeroplanes and 
operated by clockwork. In an early experiment 
this model travelled four miles in twenty-three 
minutes. 

But another airship, a true leviathan, had been 
growing into stately and graceful proportions on the 
shores of the Bodenzee in Wurtemberg, and was al- 
ready on the eve of completion. Count Zeppelin, 
a lieut.-general in the German Army, who had seen 
service in the Franco-German War, had for some years 
devoted his fortune and energy to the practical study 
of aerial navigation, and had prosecuted experiments 
on a large scale. Eventually, having formed a com- 
pany with a large capital, he was enabled to con- 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP. 293 

struct an airship which in size has been compared 
to a British man-of-war. Cigar-shaped, its length 
was no less than 420 feet, and diameter 40 feet, while 
its weight amounted to no more than 7,250 lbs. The 
framework, which for lightness had been made of 
aluminium, was, with the object of preventing all 
the gas collecting at one end of its elongated form, 
subdivided into seventeen compartments, each of 
these compartments containing a completely fitted 
gas balloon, made of oiled cotton -and marvellously 
gas tight. A steering apparatus was placed both 
fore and aft, and at a safe distance below the main 
structure w r ere fixed, also forward and aft, on alu- 
minium platforms, two Daimler motor engines of 
16-horse power, working aluminium propellers of 
four blades at the rate of 1,000 revolutions a minute. 
Finally, firmly attached to the inner framework by 
rods of aluminium, were two cars of the same metal, 
furnished with buffer springs to break the force of a 
fall. The trial trip was not made till the summer 
following — June, 1900— and, in the meanwhile, ex- 
periments had gone forward with another mode of 
flight, terminating, unhappily, in the death of one 
of the most expert and ingenious of mechanical 
aeronauts. 

Mr. Percy S. Pilcher, now thirty- three years of age, 
having received his early training in the Navy, re- 
tired from the Service to become a civil engineer, 
and had been for some time a partner in the firm of 
Wilson and Pilcher. For four or five years he had 
been experimenting in soaring flight, using a Lilienthal 
machine, which he improved to suit his own methods. 



294 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Among these was the device of rising off the ground 
by being rapidly towed by a line against the wind. 

At the end of September he gave an exhibition 
at Stamford Park before Lord Bray and a select party 
of friends — this in spite of an unsuitable afternoon of 
unsteady wind and occasional showers. A long tow- 
ing line was provided, which, being passed round pulley 
blocks and dragged by a couple of horses, was cap- 
able of being hauled in at high speed. The first 
trial, though ending in an accident, was eminently 
satisfactory. The apparatus, running against the 
wind, had risen some distance, when the line broke, 
yet the inventor descended slowly and safely with 
outstretched wings. The next trial also commenced 
well, with an easy rise to a height of some thirty feet. 
At that point, however, the tail broke with a snap, 
and the machine, pitching over, fell a complete wreck. 
Mr. Pilcher was found insensible, with his thigh broken, 
and though no other serious injury was apparent, he 
succumbed two days afterwards without recovering 
consciousness. It was surmised that shrinkage of the 
canvas of the tail, through getting wet, had strained 
and broken its bamboo stretcher. 

This autumn died Gaston Tissandier, at the age of 
fifty-six ; and in the month of December, at a ripe 
old age, while still in full possession of intellectual 
vigour, Mr. Coxwell somewhat suddenly passed away. 
Always keenly interested in the progress of aeronautics, 
he had but recently, in a letter to the Standard, pro- 
posed a well-considered and practical method of em- 
ploying Montgolfier reconnoitring balloons, portable, 
readily inflated, and especially suited to the war in 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP. 295 

South Africa. Perhaps the last letters of a private 
nature penned by Mr. Coxwell were to the writer and 
his daughter, full of friendly and valuable suggestion, 
and more particularly commenting on a recent 
scientific aerial voyage, which proved to be not only 
sensational, but established a record in English 
ballooning. 

The great train of the November meteors, known 
as the Leonids, which at regular periods of thirty- 
three years had in the past encountered the earth's 
atmosphere, was due, and over-due. The cause of 
this, and of their finally eluding observation, need 
only be very briefly touched on here. The actual 
meteoric train is known to travel in an elongated 
ellipse, the far end of which lies near the confines of 
the solar system, while at a point near the hither end 
the earth's orbit runs slantingly athwart it, forming, 
as it were, a level crossing common to the two orbits, 
the earth taking some five or six hours in transit. 
Calculation shows that the meteor train is to be ex- 
pected at this crossing every thirty-three and a third 
years, while the train is extended to such an enormous 
length — taking more than a year to draw clear — 
that the earth must needs encounter it ere it gets 
by, possibly even two years running. There could 
be no absolute certainty about the exact year, nor 
the exact night when the earth and the meteors would 
foregather, owing to the uncertain disturbance which 
the latter must suffer from the pull of the planetary 
bodies in the long journey out and home again among 
them. As is now known, this disturbing effect had 
actually dispersed the train. 



296 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

The shower, which was well seen in 1866, was 
pretty confidently expected in 1899, and to guard 
against the mischance of cloudy weather, it was ar- 
ranged that the writer should, on behalf of the Times 
newspaper, make an ascent on the right night to 
secure observations. Moreover, it was arranged that 
he should have, as chief assistant, his own daughter, 
an enthusiastic lady aeronaut, who had also taken 
part in previous astronomical work. 

Unfortunately there were two nights, those of 
November 14th and 15th, when the expected shower 
seemed equally probable, and, taking counsel with 
the best authorities in the astronomical world, it 
seemed that the only course to avoid disappointment 
would be to have a balloon filled and moored in readi- 
ness for an immediate start, either on the first night 
or on the second. 

This settled the matter from the astronomical 
side, but there was the aeronautical side also to be 
considered. A balloon of 56,000 cubic feet capacity 
was the largest available for the occasion, and a night 
ascent with three passengers and instruments would 
need plenty of lifting power to meet chance emer- 
gencies. Thus it seemed that a possible delay of 
forty-eight hours might entail a greater leakage of 
gas than could be afforded. 

The leakage might be expected chiefly to occur 
at the valve in the head of the balloon, it being ex- 
tremely difficult to render any form of mechanical 
valve gas tight, however carefully its joints be stopped 
with luting. On this account, therefore, it was deter- 
mined that the balloon should be fitted with what 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP. 297 

is known as a solid or rending valve, consisting simply 
of balloon fabric tied hard and fast over the entire 
upper outlet, after the fashion of a jam pot cover. 
The outlet itself was a gaping hole of over 2 feet 
across ; but by the time its covering had been care- 
fully varnished over all leakage was sufficiently pre- 
vented, the one drawback to this method being the 
fact that the liberation of gas now admitted of no 
regulation. Pulling the valve line would simply 
mean opening the entire wide aperture, which could 
in no way be closed again. 

The management of such a valve consists in allow- 
ing the balloon to sink spontaneously earthwards, 
and when it has settled near the ground, having 
chosen a desirable landing place, to tear open the 
so-called valve once and for all. 

This expedient, dictated by necessity, seeming 
sufficient for the purpose at hand, preparations were 
proceeded with, and, under the management of Mr. 
Stanley Spencer, who agreed to act as aeronaut, 
a large balloon, with solid valve, was brought down 
to Newbury gas works on November 14th, and, being 
inflated during the afternoon, was full and made snug 
by sundown. But as the meteor radiant would not 
be well above the horizon till after midnight, the 
aeronautical party retired for refreshment, and sub- 
sequently for rest, when, as the night wore on, it 
became evident that, though the sky remained clear, 
there would be no meteor display that night. The 
next day was overcast, and by nightfall hopelessly 
so, the clouds ever thickening, with absence of wind 
or any indication which might give promise of a 



298 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

change. Thus by midnight it became impossible to 
tell whether any display were in progress or not. 
Under these circumstances, it might have been dif- 
ficult to decide when to make the start with the 
best show of reason. Clearly too early a start 
could not subsequently be rectified ; the balloon, 
once off, could not come back again ; while, 
once liberated, it would be highly unwise for it 
to remain aloft and hidden by clouds for more 
than some two hours, lest it should be carried out 
to sea. 

Happily the right decision under these circum- 
stances was perfectly clear. Other things being 
equal, the best time would be about 4 a.m., by 
which period the moon, then near the full, would be 
getting low, and the two hours of darkness left 
would afford the best seeing. Leaving, then, an 
efficient outlook on the balloon ground, the party 
enjoyed for some hours the entertainment offered 
them by the Newbury Guildhall Club, and at 4 a.m., 
taking their seats in the car, sailed up into the calm, 
chilly air of the November night. 

But the chilliness did not last for long. A height 
of 1,500 feet was read by the Davy lamp, and then 
we entered fog — warm, wetting fog, through which 
the balloon would make no progress in spite of a 
prodigal discharge of sand. The fact was that the 
balloon, which had become chilled through the night 
hours, was gathering a great weight of moisture from 
condensation on its surface, and when, at last, the 
whole depth of the cloud, 1,500 feet, had been pene- 
trated, the chill of the upper air crippled the balloon 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP. 299 

and sent her plunging down again into the mist, 
necessitating yet further expenditure of sand, which 
by this time had amounted to no less than 3 J cwt. 
in twenty minutes. And then at last we reached our 
level, a region on the upper margin of the cloud floor, 
where evaporation reduced the temperature, that 
had recently been that of greenhouse warmth, to 
intense cold. 

That evaporation was going on around us on a 
gigantic scale was made very manifest. The surface 
of the vast cloud floor below us was in a perfect tur- 
moil, like that of a troubled sea. If the cloud sur- 
face could be compared to anything on earth it most 
resembled sea where waves are running mountains 
high. At one moment we should be sailing over a 
trough, wide and deep below us, the next a mighty 
billow would toss itself aloft and vanish utterly into 
space. Everywhere wreaths of mist with ragged 
fringes were withering away into empty air, and, 
more remarkable yet, was the conflict of wind which 
sent the cloud wrack flying simply in all directions. 

For two hours now there was opportunity for 
observing at leisure all that could be made of the 
falling meteors. There were a few, and these, owing 
to our clear, elevated region, were exceptionally 
bright. The majority, too, were true Leonids, issu- 
ing from the radiant point in the " Sickle," but these 
w r ere not more numerous than may be counted on 
that night in any year, and served to emphasise the 
fact that no real display was in progress. The out- 
look was maintained, and careful notes made for two 
hours, at the end of which time the dawn began to 



300 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

break, the stars went in, and we were ready to pack 
up and come down. 

But the point was that we were not coming down. 
We were at that time, 6 a.m., 4,000 feet high, and it 
needs no pointing out that at such an altitude it would 
have been madness to tear open our huge rending 
valve, thus emptying the balloon of gas. It may 
also be unnecessary to point out that in an ordinary 
afternoon ascent such a valve would be perfectly 
satisfactory, for under these circumstances the sun 
presently must go down, the air must grow chill, 
and the balloon must come earthward, allowing of an 
easy descent until a safe and suitable opportunity 
for rending the valve occurred ; but now we knew 
that conditions were reversed, and that the sun was 
just going to rise. 

; 1 And then it was we realised that we were caught 
in a trap. From that moment it was painfully evident 
that we were powerless to act, and were at the mercy 
of circumstances. By this time the light was strong, 
and, being well above the tossing billows of mist, we 
commanded an extended view on every side, which 
revealed, however, only the upper unbroken surface 
of the dense cloud canopy that lay over all the British 
Isles. We could only make a rough guess as to our 
probable locality. We knew that our course at 
starting lay towards the west, and if we were main- 
taining that course a travel of scarcely more than 
sixty miles would carry us out to the open sea. We 
had already been aloft for two hours, and as we were 
at an altitude at which fast upper currents are com- 
monly met with, it was high time that, for safety, 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP: 301 

we should be coming down ; yet it was morally certain 
that it would be now many hours before our balloon 
would commence to descend of its own accord by 
sheer slow leakage of gas, by which time, beyond all 
reasonable doubt, we must be carried far out over 
the Atlantic. All we could do was to listen intently 
for any sounds that might reach us from earth, and 
assure us that w T e were still over the land ; and for a 
length of time such sounds were vouchsafed us — the 
bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, the ringing trot 
of a horse on some hard road far down. 

And then, as we were expecting, the sun climbed 
up into an unsullied sky, and, mounting by leaps and 
bounds, we watched the cloud floor receding beneath 
us. The effect was extremely beautiful. A descrip- 
tion written to the Times the next morning, while the 
impression was still fresh, and from notes made at 
this period, ran thus: — "Away, to an infinitely dis- 
tant horizon stretched rolling billows of snowy 
whiteness, broken up here and there into seeming 
ice-fields, with huge fantastic hummocks. Else- 
where domes and spires reared themselves above the 
general surface, or an isolated Matterhorn towered 
into space. In some quarters it was impossible to 
look without the conviction that we actually beheld 
the outline of lofty cliffs overhanging a none too dis- 
tant sea." Shortly we began to hear loud reports 
overhead, resembling small explosions, and we knew 
what these were — the moist, shrunken netting was 
giving out under the hot sun and yielding now and 
again with sudden release to the rapidly expanding 
gas. It was, therefore, with grave concern, but with 



302 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

no surprise, that when we next turned to the aneroid 
we found the index pointing to g 3 ooo feet, and still 
moving upwards. 

Hour after hour passed by, and, sounds having 
ceased to reach us, it remains uncertain whether or 
no we were actually carried out to sea and headed 
back again by contrary currents, an experience with 
which aeronauts, including the writer, have been 
familiar ; but, at length, there was borne up to us 
the distant sound of heavy hammers and of frequent 
trains, from which we gathered that we were probably 
over Bristol, and it was then that the thought occurred 
to my daughter that we might possibly communicate 
with those below with a view to succour. This led 
to our writing the following message many times over 
on blank telegraph forms and casting them down : — 
"' Urgent. Large balloon from Newbury travelling 
overhead above the clouds. Cannot descend. Tele- 
graph to sea coast (coast-guards) to be ready to rescue. 
— Bacon and Spencer." 

While thus occupied we caught the sound of 
waves, and the shriek of a ship's siren. We were 
crossing a reach of the Severn, and most of our mis- 
sives probably fell in the sea. But over the estuary 
there must have been a cold upper current blowing, 
which crippled our balloon, for the aneroid presently 
told of a fall of 2,000 feet. It was now past noon, 
and to us the turn of the tide was come. Very slowly, 
and with strange fluctuations, the balloon crept down 
till it reached and became enveloped in the cloud 
below, and then the end was near. The actual descent 
occupied nearly two hours, and affords a curious study 



THE MODERN AIRSHIP 303 

in aerostation. The details of the balloon's dying 
struggles and of our own rough descent, entailing the 
fracture of my daughter's arm, are told in anothe 
volume.* 

We fell near Neath, Glamorganshire, only one and 
a half miles short of the sea, completing a voyage 
which is a record in English ballooning — ten hours 
from start to finish. 

* ff By Land and Sky/* by the Author. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS. 

THE first trial of the Zeppelin air ship was arranged 
to take place on June 30th, 1900, a day which, 
from absence of wind, was eminently well suited for the 
purpose ; but the inflation proved too slow a process, 
and operations were postponed to the morrow. The 
morrow, however, was somewhat windy, causing delay, 
and by the time all was in readiness darkness had set 
in and the start was once more postponed. On the 
evening of the third day the monster craft was skilfully 
and successfully manoeuvred, and, rising with a very 
light wind, got fairly away, carrying Count Zeppelin 
and four other persons in the two cars. Drifting with 
the wind, it attained a height of some 800 or 900 feet, 
at which point the steering apparatus being brought 
into play it circled round and faced the wind, when it 
remained stationary. But not for long. Shortly it 
began to descend and, sinking gradually, gracefully, 
and in perfect safety, in about nine minutes it reached 
and rested on the water, when it was towed home. 
A little later in the month, July, another trial was 
made, when a wind was blowing estimated at sixteen 
miles an hour. As on the previous occasion, the 
direct influence of the sun was avoided by waiting till 
evening hours. It ascended at 8 p.m., and the engines 
getting to work it made a slow progress of about two 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS 305 

miles an hour against the wind for about 3 J miles, 
when one of the rudders gave way, and the machine 
was obliged to descend, 

On the evening of October 24th of the same year, 
in very calm weather and with better hope, another 
ascent was made. On this occasion, however, success 
was frustrated by one of the rear rudders getting 
foul of the gear, followed by the escape of gas from 
one of the balloons. 

x\nother and more successful trial took place in 
the same month, again in calm atmosphere. Inferior 
gas was employed, and it would appear that the vessel 
had not sufficient buoyancy. It remained aloft for 
a period of twenty minutes, during which it proved 
perfectly manageable, making a graceful journey out 
and home, and returning close to its point of depar- 
ture. This magnificent air ship, the result of twenty 
years of experiment, has since been abandoned and 
broken up ; yet the sacrifice has not been without 
result. Over and above the stimulus which Count 
Zeppelin's great endeavour has given to the aeronaut- 
ical world, two special triumphs are his. He has shown 
balloonists how to make a perfectly gas-tight material, 
and has raised powerful petroleum motors in a balloon 
with safety. 

In the early part of 1900 it was announced that 
a member of the Paris Aero Club, who at the time 
withheld his name (M. Deutsch) offered a prize of 
100,000 francs to the aeronaut who, either in a balloon 
or flying machine, starting from the grounds of the 
Aero Club at Longchamps, would make a journey 
round the Eiffel Tower, returning to thp starting 
u 



306 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

place within half an hour. The donor would with- 
draw his prize if not won within five years, and in 
the meanwhile would pay 4,000 francs annually to- 
wards the encouragement of worthy experimenters. 

It was from this time that flying machines in great 
variety and gcodly number began to be heard of, 
if not actually seen. One of the earliest to be an- 
nounced in the Press was a machine invented by the 
Russian, Feedoroff, and the Frenchman, Dupont. 
Dr. Danilewsky came forward with a flying machine 
combining balloon and aero-plane, the steering of which 
would be worked like a velocipede by the feet of the 
aeronaut. 

Mr. P. Y. Alexander, of Bath, who had long been 
an enthusiastic balloonist, and who had devoted a 
vast amount of pains, originality, and engineering 
skill to the pursuit of aeronautics, was at this time 
giving much attention to the flying machine, and 
was, indeed, one of the assistants in the first success- 
ful launching of the Zeppelin airship. In concert 
with Mr. W. G. Walker, A.M.I.C.E., Mr. Alexander 
carried out some valuable and exhaustive experiments 
on the lifting power of air propellers, 30 feet in dia- 
meter, driven by a portable engine. The results, which 
were of a purely technical nature, have been em- 
bodied in a carefully compiled memoir. 

An air ship now appeared, invented by M. Rose, 
consisting of two elongated vessels filled with gas, 
and carrying the working gear and car between them. 
The machine was intentionally made heavier than 
air, and was operated by a petrol motor of 12-horse 
power. 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS. 307 

It was now that announcements began to be 
made to the effect that, next to the Zeppelin air ship, 
M. Santos Dumont's balloon was probably attracting 
most of the attention of experts. The account given 
of this air vessel by the Daily Express was some- 
what startling. The balloon proper was com- 
pared to a large torpedo. Three feet beneath this 
hangs the gasoline motor which is to supply the power. 
The propeller is 12 feet in diameter, and is revolved 
so rapidly by the motor that the , engine frequently 
gets red hot. The only accommodation for the tra- 
veller is a little bicycle seat, from which the aeronaut 
will direct his motor and steering gear by means of 
treadles. Then the inclination or declination of his 
machine must be noted on the spirit level at his side, 
and the 200 odd pounds of ballast must be regulated 
as the course requires. 

A more detailed account of this navigable balloon 
was furnished by a member of the Paris Aero Club. 
From this authority we learn that the capacity of 
the balloon was 10,700 cubic feet. It contained an 
inner balloon and an air fan, the function of which 
was to maintain the shape of the balloon when meet- 
ing the wind, and the whole was operated by a 10-horse 
power motor capable of working the screw at 100 
revolutions per minute. 

But before the aerial exploits of Santos Dumont 
had become famous, balloons had again claimed 
public attention. On August 1st Captain Spel- 
terini, with two companions, taking a balloon and 
180 cylinders of hydrogen to the top of the Rigi and 
ascending thence, pursued a north-east course, across 



308 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

extensive and beautiful tracts of icefield and moun- 
tain fastnesses un visited by men. The descent, which 
was difficult and critical, was happily manoeuvred. 
This took place on the Gnuetseven, a peak over 5,000 
feet high, the plateau on which the voyagers landed 
being described as only 50 yards square, surrounded 
by precipices. 

On the 10th of September following the writer 
was fortunate in carrying out some wireless tele- 
graphy experiments in a balloon, the success of which 
is entirely due to the unrivalled skill of Mr. Nevil 
Maskelyne, F.R.A.S., and to his clever adaptation 
of the special apparatus of his own invention to the 
exigencies of a free balloon. The occasion was the 
garden party at the Bradford meeting of the British 
Association, Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle taking 
part in the voyage, with Mr. Percival Spencer in 
charge. The experiment was to include the firing 
of a mine in the grounds two minutes after the bal- 
loon had left, and this item was entirely successful. 
The main idea was to attempt to establish communica- 
tion between a base and a free balloon retreating 
through space at a height beyond practicable gun 
shot. The wind was fast and squally, and the un- 
avoidable rough jolting which the car received at the 
start put the transmitting instrument out of action. 
The messages, however, which were sent from the 
grounds at Lister Park were received and watched 
by the occupants of the car up to a distance of twenty 
miles, at which point the voyage terminated. 

On September 30th, and also on October 9th, of 
this year, took place two principal balloon races from 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS. 309 

Vincennes in connection with the Paris Exposition. 
In the first race, among those who competed were 
M. Jacques Faure, the Count de ia Vaulx, and M. 
Jacques Balsan. The Count was the winner, reaching 
Wocawek, in Russian Poland, a travel of 706 miles, 
in 21 hours 34 minutes. M. Balsan was second, 
descending near Dantzig in East Prussia, 757 miles, 
in 22 hours. M. Jacques Faure reached Mamlitz, 
in East Prussia, a distance of 753 miles. 

In the final race the Count de la Vaulx made a 
record voyage of 1,193 miles, reaching Korosticheff, 
in Russia, in 35 hours 45 minutes, attaining a maxi- 
mum altitude of 18,810 feet. M. J. Balsan reached 
a greater height, namely, 21,582 feet, travelling to 
Rodom, in Russia, a distance of 843 miles, in 27 
hours 25 minutes. 

Some phenomenal altitudes were attained at this 
time. In September, 1898, Dr. Berson, of Berlin, 
ascended from the Crystal Palace in a balloon inflated 
with hydrogen, under the management of Mr. Stanley 
Spencer, oxygen being an essential part of the equip- 
ment. The start was made at 5 p.m., and the bal- 
loon at first drifted south-east, out over the mouth of 
the Thames, until at an altitude of 10,000 feet an 
upper current changed the course to south-west, the 
balloon mounting rapidly till 23,000 feet was reached, 
at which height the coast of France was plainly seen. 
At 25,000 feet both voyagers were gasping, and com- 
pelled to inhale oxygen. iVt 27,500 feet, only four 
bags of ballast being left, the descent was commenced, 
and a safe landing was effected at Romford. 

Subsequently Dr. Berson, in company with Dr. 



310 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Suring, ascending from Berlin, attained an altitude 
of 34,000 feet. At 30,000 feet the aeronauts were 
inhaling oxygen, and before reaching their highest 
point both had for a considerable time remained un- 
conscious. 

In 1901 a new aero-plane flying machine began 
to attract attention, the invention of Herr Kress. 
A novel feature of the machine was a device to render 
it of avail for Arctic travel. In shape it might be 
compared to an ice-boat with two keels and a long 
stem, the keels being adapted to run on ice or snow, 
while the boat would float on water. Power was to 
be derived from a petrol motor. 

At the same period M. Henry Sutor was busy on 
Lake Constance with an air ship designed also to 
float on water. Then Mr. Buchanan followed with 
a fish-shaped vessel, one of the most important speciali- 
ties of which consisted in side propellers, the surfaces 
of which were roughened with minute diagonal grooves 
to effect a greater grip on the air. 

No less original was the air ship, 100 feet long, 
and carrying 18,000 cubic feet of gas, which Mr. W. 
Beedle was engaged upon. In this machine, besides 
the propellers for controlling the horizontal motion, 
there was one to regulate vertical motion, with a view 
of obviating expenditure of gas or ballast. 

But by this time M. Santos Dumont, pursuing 
his hobby with unparalleled perseverance, had built 
in succession no less than six air ships, meeting with 
no mean success, profiting by every lesson taught 
by failures, and making light of all accidents, great 
or small. On July 15th, 1901, he made a famous 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS. 3*1 

try for the Deutsch prize in a cigar-shaped balloon, 
no feet long, 19,000 cubic feet capacity, carrying a 
Daimler oil motor of 15-horse power. The day was 
not favourable, but, starting from the Pare d'Aero- 
s tat ion, he was abreast of the Eiffel Tower in thirteen 
minutes, circling round which, and battling against 
a head wind, he reached the grounds of the Aero Club 
in 41 minutes from the start, or n minutes late by 
the conditions of the prize. A cylinder had broken 
down, and the balance of the -vessel had become 
upset. 

Within a fortnight — July 29th — in favourable 
weather, he made another flight, lasting fifteen 
minutes, at the end of which he had returned to his 
starting ground. Then on August 8th a more mo- 
mentous attempt came off. Sailing up with a rapid 
ascent, and flying with the wind, Santos Dumont 
covered the distance to the Tower in five minutes only, 
and gracefully swung round ; but, immediately after, 
the wind played havoc, slowing down the motor, 
at the same time damaging the balloon, and causing 
an escape of gas. On this Santos Dumont, ascending 
higher into the sky, quitted the car, and climbed 
along the keel to inspect, and, if possible, rectify the 
motor, but with little success. The balloon was 
emptying, and the machine pitched badly, till a further 
rent occurred, when it commenced falling hopelessly 
and with a speed momentarily increasing. 

Slanting over a roof, the balloon caught a chimney 
and tore asunder ; but the wreck, also catching, held 
fast, while the car hung helplessly down a blank wall. 
In this perilous predicament great coolness and agility 



312 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

alone averted disaster, till firemen were able to come 
to the rescue. 

The air ship was damaged beyond repair, but by 
September 6th another w T as completed, and on trial 
appeared to work well until, while travelling at speed, 
it was brought up and badly strained by the trail rope 
catching in trees. 

Early in the next month the young Brazilian was 
aloft again, with weather conditions entirely in his 
favour ; but again certain minor mishaps prevented 
his next struggle for the prize, which did not take 
place till the 19th. On this day a light cross wind was 
blowing, not sufficient, however, seriously to influ- 
ence the first stage of the time race, and the outward 
journey was accomplished with a direct flight in nine 
minutes. On rounding the tower, however, the wind 
began to tell prejudicially, and the propeller became 
deranged. On this, letting his vessel fall off from the 
wind, Santos Dumont crawled along the framework till 
he reached the motor, which he succeeded in again 
setting in working order, though not without a delay 
of several minutes and some loss of ground. From 
that point the return journey was accomplished in 
eight minutes, and the race was, at the time, declared 
lost by 40 seconds only. 

The most important and novel feature in the air 
ships constructed by Santos Dumont was the inter- 
nal ballonet, inflated automatically by a ventilator, 
the expedient being designed to preserve the shape 
of the main balloon itself while meeting the wind. 
On the whole, it answered well, and took the place 
of the heavy wire cage used by Zeppelin. 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS. 313 

M. de Fonvielle, commenting on the achievements 
of Santos Dumont, wrote : — " It does not appear that 
he has navigated his balloon against more than very- 
light winds, but in his machinery he has shown such 
attention to detail that it may reasonably be ex- 
pected that if he continues to increase his motive- 
power he will, ere long, exceed past performances," 

Mr. Chanute has a further word to say about the 
possibility of making balloons navigable. He con- 
siders that their size will have to be great to the verge 
of impracticability and the power of the motor enor- 
mous in proportion to its weight. As to flying 
machines, property so called, he calculates the best 
that has been done to be the sustaining of from 27 
lbs. to 55 lbs. per horse power by impact upon the air. 
But Mr. Chanute also argues that the equilibrium 
is of prime importance, and on this point there could 
scarcely be a greater authority. No one of living 
men has given more attention to the problem of 
" soaring," and it is stated that he has had about a 
thousand " slides " made by assistants, with different 
types of machine, and all without the slightest accident. 

Many other aerial vessels might be mentioned. 
Mr. T. H. Bastin, of Clapham, has been engaged for 
many years on a machine which should imitate bird 
flight as nearly as this may be practicable. 

Baron Bradsky aims at a navigable balloon on 
an ambitious scale. M. Tatin is another candidate 
for the Deutsch prize. Of Dr. Barton's air ship 
more is looked for, as being designed for the War 
Office. It is understood that the official requirements 
demand a machine which, while capable of transport- 



314 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

ing a man through the air at a speed of 13 miles an 
hour, can remain fully inflated for 48 hours. One of 
the most sanguine, as well as enterprising, imitators 
of Santos Dumont was a fellow countryman, Auguste 
Severe Of his machine during construction little 
could be gathered, and still less seen, from the fact 
that the various parts were being manufactured at 
different workshops, but it was known to be of large 
size and to be fitted with powerful motors. This 
was an ill-fated vessel. At an early hour on May 
12th of this year, 1902, all Paris was startled by a 
report that M. Severo and his assistant, M. Sachet, 
had been killed while making a trial excursion. It 
appears that at daybreak it had been decided that 
the favourable moment for trial had arrived. The 
machinery was got ready, and with little delay the 
air vessel was dismissed and rose quietly and steadily 
into the calm sky. The Daily Mail gives the fol- 
lowing account of what ensued : — 

" For the first few minutes all went well, and the 
motor seemed to be working satisfactorily. The air 
ship answered the helm readily, and admiring ex- 
clamations rose from the crowd. . . . But as the 
vessel rose higher she was seen to fall off from the 
wind, while the aeronauts could be seen vainly en- 
deavouring to keep her head on. Then M. Severo 
commenced throwing out ballast. . . . All this time 
the ship was gradually soaring higher and higher until, 
just as it was over the Montparnasse Cemetery, at 
the height of 2,000 feet, a sheet of flame was seen 
to shoot up from one of the motors, and instantly 
the immense silk envelope containing 9,000 cubic 



RECENT AERONAUTICAL EVENTS 315 

feet of hydrogen was enveloped in leaping tongues 
of fire. ... As soon as the flames came in contact 
with the gas a tremendous explosion followed, and 
in an instant all that was left of the air ship fell to 
the earth." Both aeronauts were dashed to pieces. 
It was thought that the fatality was caused through 
faulty construction, the escape valve for the gas 
being situated only about nine feet from the motor. 
It was announced by Count de la Vaulx that 
during the summer of 1901 he would attempt to cross 
the Mediterranean by a balloon, provisioned for three 
weeks, maintaining communication with the coast 
during his voyage by wireless telegraphy and other 
methods of signalling. He was to make use of the 
" Herve Deviator," or steering apparatus, which 
may be described as a series of cup-shaped plates 
dipping in the w T ater at the end of a trail rope. By 
means of controlling cords worked from the car, the 
whole series of plates could be turned at an angle to 
the direction of the wind, by which the balloon's 
course would be altered. Count de la Vaulx at- 
tempted this grand journey on October 12th, starting 
from Toulon with the intention of reaching Algiers, 
taking the precaution, however, of having a cruiser 
in attendance. When fifty miles out from Marseilles 
a passing steamer received from the balloon the 
signal, " All's well " ; but the wind had veered round 
to the east, and, remaining persistently in this quarter, 
the Count abandoned his venture, and, signalling 
to the cruiser, succeeded in alighting on her deck, 
not, however, before he had completed the splendid 
and record voyage of 41 hours' duration. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE. 

CLEARLY the time has not yet arrived when the 
flying machine will be serviceable in war. Yet 
we are not without those theorisers who, at the present 
moment, would seriously propose schemes for con- 
veying dynamite and other explosives by air ship, 
or dropping them over hostile forces or fortresses, 
or even fleets at sea. They go yet further, and gravely 
discuss the point whether such warfare would be 
legitimate. We, however, may say at once, em- 
phatically, that any such scheme is simply imprac- 
ticable. It must be abundantly evident that, so 
far, no form of dirigible air ship exists which could 
be relied on to carry out any required manoeuvre in 
such atmospheric conditions as generally prevail. 
If, even in calm and favourable weather, more often 
than not motors break down, or gear carries away, 
what hope is there for any aerial craft which would 
attempt to battle with such wind currents as com- 
monly blow aloft ? 

And when we turn to the balloon proper, are chances 
greatly improved ? The eminently practical aero- 
naut, John Wise, as was told in Chapter XII., pre- 
pared a scheme for the reduction of Vera Cruz by 
the agency of a balloon. Let us glance at it. A 
single balloon was to suffice, measuring ioo feet in 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE. 317 

diameter, and capable of raising in the gross 30,000 
lbs. To manoeuvre this monstrous engine he cal- 
culates he would require a cable five miles long, by 
means of which he hoped, in some manner, to work his 
way directly over the fortress, and to remain poised 
at that point at the height of a mile in the sky. Once 
granted that he could arrive and maintain himself 
at that position, the throwing out of combustibles 
would be simple, though even then the spot where 
they would alight after the drop of a mile would be 
by no means certain. It is also obvious that a vast 
amount of gas would have to be sacrificed to com- 
pensate for the prodigal discharge of ballast in the 
form of missiles. 

The idea of manoeuvring a balloon in a wind, 
and poising it in the manner suggested, is, of course, 
preposterous ; and when one considers the attempt 
to aim bombs from a moving balloon high in air 
the case becomes yet more absurd. Any such mis- 
sile would partake of the motion of the balloon 
itself, and it would be impossible to tell where it 
would strike the earth. 

To give an example which is often enough tried 
in balloon travel when the ground below is clear. 
A glass bottle (presumably empty) is cast overboard 
and its fall watched. It is seen not to be left behind, 
but to keep pace with the balloon, shrinking gradually 
to an object too small to be discerned, except when every 
now and then a ray of sunlight reflected off it reveals 
it for a moment as it continues to plunge downwards. 
After a very few seconds the impression is that it 
is about to reach the earth, and the eye forms a guess 



318 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

at some spot which it will strike ; but the spot is 
quickly passed, and the bottle travels far beyond, 
across a field, over the further fence, and vastly fur- 
ther yet ; indeed, inasmuch as to fall a mile in air 
a heavy body may take over twenty seconds — and 
twenty seconds is long to those who watch—it is often 
impossible to tell to two or three fields where it will 
finally settle. 

All this while the risk that a balloon would run 
of being riddled by bullets, shrapnel, or pom-poms 
has not been taken into account, and as to the esti- 
mate of this risk there is some difference of opinion. 
The balloon corps and the artillery apparently ap- 
proach the question with different bias. On the one 
hand, it is stated with perfect truth that a free bal- 
loon, which is generally either rising or falling, as 
well as moving across country, is a hard object to 
hit, and a marksman would only strike it with a 
chance or blundering shot ; but, on the other hand, 
let us take the following report of three years ago. 

The German artillery had been testing the effi- 
ciency of a quick-firing gun when used against a 
balloon, and they decided that the latter would have 
no chance of escape except at night. A German kite- 
balloon was kept moving at an altitude of 600 metres, 
and the guns trained upon it were distant 3,000 
metres. It was then stated that after the third dis- 
charge of the rapid firing battery the range was found, 
when all was at once over with the balloon ; for, not 
only was it hit with every discharge, but it was pre- 
sently set on fire and annihilated. 

But, in any case, the^ antique mode of keeping 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE: 319 

a balloon moored at any spot as a post of observa- 
tion must be abandoned in modern warfare. Major 
Baden-Powell, speaking from personal experience in 
South Africa, has shown how dangerous, or else how 
useless, such a form of reconnaissance has become. " I 
remember," he says, " at the battle of Magersfontein 
my company was lying down in extended order to- 
wards the left of our line. We were perfectly safe 
from musketry fire, as we lay, perhaps, two miles 
from the Boer trenches, which were being shelled by 
some of our guns close by. The enemy's artillery 
was practically silent. Presently, on looking round, 
I descried our balloon away out behind us about two 
miles off. Then she steadily rose and made several 
trips to a good height, but what could be seen from 
that distance ? When a large number of our troops 
were ranged up within 800 yards of the trenches, 
and many more at all points behind them, what 
useful information could be obtained by means of 
the balloon four miles off ? " 

The same eminent authority insists on the neces- 
sity of an observing war balloon making short ascents. 
The balloon, in his opinion, should be allowed to ascend 
rapidly to its full height, and with as little delay as 
possible be hauled down again. Under these con- 
ditions it may then be well worth testing whether 
the primitive form of balloon, the Montgolfier, might 
not be the most valuable. Instead of being made, 
as the war balloon is now, of fragile material, and 
filled with costly gas difficult to procure, and which 
has to be conveyed in heavy and cumbersome cy- 
linders, a hot air balloon could be rapidly carried 



320 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

by hand anywhere where a few men could push their 
way. It is of strong material, readily mended if 
torn, and could be inflated for short ascents, if not 
by mere brush wood, then by a portable blast furnace 
and petroleum. 

But there is a further use for balloons in warfare 
not yet exploited. The Siege of Paris showed the 
utility of free balloons, and occasions arise when their 
use might be still further extended. The writer 
pointed out that it might have been very possible 
for an aeronaut of experience, by choosing the right 
weather and the right position along the British 
lines, to have skilfully manoeuvred a free balloon 
by means of upper currents, so as to convey all- 
important intelligence to besieged Mafeking, and he 
proved that it would have sufficed if the balloon 
could have been " tacked " across the sky to within 
some fifteen miles of the desired goal. 

The mode of signalling which he proposed was 
by means of a " collapsing drum," an instrument of 
occasional use in the Navy. A modification of this 
instrument, as employed by the writer, consisted of 
a light, spherical, drum-shaped frame of large 
size, which, when covered with dark material and hung 
in the clear below the car of a lofty balloon, could be 
well seen either against blue sky or grey at a great 
distance. The so-called drum could, by a very simple 
contrivance, readily worked from the car, be made to 
collapse into a very inconspicuous object, and thus 
be capable of displaying Morse Code signals. A long 
pause with the drum extended — like the long wave 
of a signalling flag — would denote a " dash," and a 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE' 321 

short pause a " dot," and these motions would be 
at once intelligible to anyone acquainted with the 
now universal Morse Code system, 

Provided with an apparatus of the kind, the writer 
made an ascent from Newbury at a time when the 
military camps were lying on Salisbury Plain at a 
distance of nearly twenty miles to the south-west. 
The ground wind up to 2,500 feet on starting was 
nearly due north, and would have defeated the at- 
tempt ; again, the air stream blowing above that 
height was nearly due east, which again would have 
proved unsuitable. But it was manifestly possible 
to utilise the two currents, and with good luck to 
zig-zag one's course so as to come within easy sig- 
nalling distance of the various camps ; and, as a matter 
of fact, we actually passed immediately over Bul- 
ford Camp, with which we exchanged signals, while 
two other camps lay close to right and left of us. 
Fortune favouring us, we had actually hit our mark, 
though it would have been sufficient for the experi- 
ment had our course lain within ten miles right or 
left. 

Yet a further use for the balloon in warfare re- 
mains untried in this country. Acting under the 
advice of experts in the Service, the writer, in the 
early part of the present year, suggested to the Ad- 
miralty the desirability of experimenting with bal- 
loons as a means of detecting submarine engines of 
war. It is well known that reefs and shoals can 
generally be seen from a cliff or mast head far more 
clearly than from the deck or other position near the 
surface of the water. Would not, then, a balloon, 
v 



322 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

if skilfully manoeuvred, serve as a valuable post of 
observation ? The Admiralty, in acknowledging the 
communication, promised to give the matter their 
attention ; but by the month of June the Press had 
announcements of how the self-same experiments 
had been successfully carried through by French 
authorities, while a few days later the Admiralty 
wrote, '" For the present no need is seen for the use 
of a captive balloon to detect submarines." 

Among many and varied ballooning incidents 
which have occurred to the writer, there are some 
which may not unprofitably be compared with cer- 
tain experiences already recorded of other aeronauts. 
Thunderstorms, as witnessed from a balloon, have 
already been casually described, and it may reasonably 
be hoped that the observations which have, under 
varying circumstances, been made at high altitudes 
may throw some additional light on this familiar, 
though somewhat perplexing, phenomenon. 

To begin with, it seems a moot point whether a 
balloon caught in a thunderstorm is, or is not, in 
any special danger of being struck. It has been 
argued that immunity under such circumstances 
must depend upon whether a sufficiently long time 
has elapsed since the balloon left the earth to allow 
of its becoming positively electrified by induction 
from the clouds or by rain falling upon its surface. 
But there are many other points to be considered. 
There is the constant escape of gas from the mouth ; 
there is the mass of pointed metal in the anchor ; 
and, again, it is conceivable that a balloon rapidly 
descending out of a thunderstorm might carry with 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE. 323 

it a charge residing on its moistened surface which 
might manifest itself disastrously as the balloon 
reached the earth. 

Instances seem to have been not infrequent of 
balloons encountering thunderstorms ; but, unfor- 
tunately, in most cases the observers have not had 
any scientific training, or the accounts which are to 
hand are those of the type of journalist who is chiefly 
in quest of sensational copy. 

Thus there is an account from America of a Pro- 
fessor King who made an ascent from Burlington, 
Iowa, just as a thunderstorm was approaching, with 
the result that, instead of scudding away with the 
wind before the storm, he was actually, as if by some 
attraction, drawn into it. On this his aim was to 
pierce through the cloud above, and then follows a 
description which it is hard to realise : — " There came 
down in front of him, and apparently not more than 
50 feet distant, a grand discharge of electricity." 
Then he feels the car lifted, the gas suddenly expands 
to overflowing, and the balloon is hurled through 
the cloud with inconceivable velocity, this happening 
several times, with tremendous oscillations of the car, 
until the balloon is borne to earth in a torrent of rain. 
We fancy that many practical balloonists will hardly 
endorse this description. 

But we have another, relating to one of the most 
distinguished aeronauts, M. Eugene Godard, who, in 
an ascent with local journalists, was caught in a 
thunderstorm. Here we are told — presumably by 
the journalists — that " twice the lightning flashed 
within a few yards of the terror-stricken crew." 



324 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

Once again, in an ascent at Derby, a spectator 
writes : — " The lightning played upon the sphere of 
the balloon, lighting it up and making things visible 
through it." This, however, one must suppose, can 
hardly apply to the balloon when liberated. 

But a graphic description of a very different char- 
acter given in the " Quarterly Journal of the Royal- 
Meteorological Society " for January, 1901, is of real 
value. It appears that three lieutenants of the 
Prussian Balloon Corps took charge of a balloon 
that ascended at Berlin, and, when at a height of 
2,300 feet, became enveloped in the mist, through 
which only occasional glimpses of earth were seen. 
At this point a sharp, crackling sound was heard at 
the ring, like the sparking of a huge electrical 
machine, and, looking up, the voyagers beheld sparks 
apparently some half-inch thick, and over two feet 
in length, playing from the ring. Thunder was heard, 
but — and this may have significance — only before 
and after the above phenomenon. 

Another instructive experience is recorded of 
the younger Green in an ascent which he made from 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine. On this occasion he re- 
lates that he encountered a thunderstorm, and at a 
height of 4,400 feet found himself at the level where 
the storm clouds were discharging themselves in a 
deluge. He seems to have had no difficulty in ascend- 
ing through the storm into the clear sky above, where 
a breeze from another quarter quickly carried him 
away from the storm centre. 

This co-existence, or conflict of opposite currents, 
is held to be the common characteristic, if not the 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE. 325 

main cause, of thunderstorms, and tallies with the 
following personal experience. It was in typical 
July weather of 1900 that the writer and his son, 
accompanied by Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle 
and Mr. Percival Spencer, made an evening ascent 
from Newbury. It had been a day of storms, but 
about 5 p.m., after what appeared to be a clearing 
shower, the sky brightened, and we sailed up into a 
cloudless heaven. The wind, at 3,000 feet, was travel- 
ling at some thirty miles an hour, and ere the distance 
of ten miles had been covered a formidable thunder 
pack was seen approaching and coming up dead 
against the wind. Nothing could be more evident 
than that the balloon was travelling rapidly with a 
lower wind, while the storm was being borne equally 
rapidly on an upper and diametrically opposite cur- 
rent. It proved one of the most severe thunder- 
storms remembered in the country. It brooded for 
five hours over Devizes, a few miles ahead. A home- 
stead on our right was struck and burned to the 
ground, while on our left two soldiers were killed on 
Salisbury Plain. The sky immediately overhead was, 
of course, hidden by the large globe of the balloon, 
but around and beneath us the storm seemed to gather 
in a blue grey mist, which quickly broadened and 
deepened till, almos' before we could realise it, we 
found ourselves in the very heart of the storm, the 
lightning playing all around us, and the sharp hail 
stinging our faces. 

The countrymen below described the balloon as 
apparently enveloped by the lightning, but with our- 
selves, though the flashes were incessant, and on ail 



326 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

sides, the reverberations of the thunder were not 
remarkable, being rather brief explosions in which 
they resembled the thunder claps not infrequently 
described by travellers on mountain heights. 

The balloon was now descending from a double 
cause : the weight of moisture suddenly accumulated 
on its surface, and the very obvious downrush of cold 
air that accompanied the storm of pelting hail. With 
a very limited store of ballast, it seemed impossible 
to make a further ascent, nor was this desirable. The 
signalling experiments on which we were intent could 
not be carried on in such weather. The only course 
was to descend, and though this was not at once prac- 
ticable, owing to Savernake Forest being beneath us, 
we effected a safe landing in the first available clear- 
ing. 

As has been mentioned, Mr. Glaisher and other 
observers have recorded several remarkable instances 
of opposite wind currents being met with at moderate 
altitudes. None, however, can have been more note- 
worthy or surprising than the following experience 
of the writer on Whit Monday of 1899. The ascent 
was under an overcast sky, from the Crystal Palace 
at 3 p.m., at which hour a cold drizzle was settling 
in with a moderate breeze from the east. Thus, start- 
ing from the usual filling ground near the north tower, 
the balloon sailed over the body of the Palace, and 
thence over the suburbs towards the west till lost in 
the mist. We then ascended through 1,500 feet of 
dense, wetting cloud, and, emerging in bright sun- 
shine, continued to drift for two hours at an average 
altitude of some 3,000 feet ; 1,000 feet below us was 



POSSIBILITIES OF BALLOONS IN WARFARE* 327 

the ill-defined, ever changing upper surface of the 
dense cloud floor, and it was no longer possible to 
determine our course, which we therefore assumed 
to have remained unchanged. At length, however, 
as a measure of prudence, we determined to descend 
through the clouds sufficiently to learn something 
of our whereabouts, which we reasonably expected 
to be somewhere in Surrey or Berks. On emerging, 
however, below the cloud, the first object that loomed 
out of the mist immediately below us was a cargo 
vessel, in the rigging of which our trail rope was 
entangling itself. Only by degrees the fact dawned 
upon us that we were in the estuary of the Thames, 
and beating up towards London once again with an 
east wind. Thus it became evident that at the higher 
level, unknown to ourselves, we had been headed 
back on our course, for two hours, by a wind dia- 
metrically opposed to that blowing on the ground. 
Two recent developments of the hot-air war 
balloon suggest great possibilities in the near future. 
One takes the form of a small captive, carrying aloft 
a photographic camera directed and operated electri- 
cally from the ground. The other is a self-contained 
passenger balloon of large dimensions, carrying in 
complete safety a special petroleum burner of great 
power. These new and important departures are 
mainly due to the mechanical genius of Mr. J. N. 
Maskelyne, who has patented and perfected them in 
conjunction with the writer. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 

SOME fair idea of the conditions prevailing in the 
upper air may have been gathered from the many 
and various observations already recorded. Stating 
the case broadly, we may assert that the same atmo- 
spheric changes with which we are familiar at the level 
of the earth are to be found also at all accessible 
heights, equally extensive and equally sudden. 

Standing on an open heath on a gusty day, we 
may often note the rhythmic buffeting of the wind, 
resembling the assault of rolling billows of air. The 
evidence of these billows has been actually traced 
far aloft in balloon travel, when aeronauts, looking 
down on a wind-swept surface of cloud, have ob- 
served this surface to be thrown into a series of rolls 
of vapour, which were but vast and veritable waves 
of air. The interval between successive crests of 
these waves has on one occasion been estimated at 
approximately half a mile. We have seen how these 
air streams sometimes hold wide and independent 
sway at different levels. We have seen, too, how 
they sometimes meet and mingle, not infrequently 
attended with electrical disturbance. 

Through broad drifts of air minor air streams 
would seem often literally to " thread " their way, 
breaking up into filaments or wandering rills of air. 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 329 

In the voyage across Salisbury Plain lately described, 
while the balloon was being carried with the more 
sluggish current, a number of small parachutes were 
dropped out at frequent intervals and carefully 
watched. These would commonly attend the balloon 
for a little while, until, getting into some minor air 
stream, they would suddenly and rapidly diverge 
at such wide angles as to suggest that crossing our 
actual course there were side paths, down which the 
smaller bodies became wafted. 

On another occasion the writer met with strongly 
marked and altogether exceptional evidence of the 
vehemence and persistence of these minor aerial 
streamlets. It was on an occasion in April weather, 
when a heavy overcast sky blotted out the upper 
heavens. In the cloud levels the wind was some- 
what sluggish, and for an hour we travelled at an 
average speed of a little over twenty miles an hour, 
never higher than 3,000 feet. At this point, while 
flying over Hertfordshire, we threw out sufficient 
ballast to cause the balloon to rise clear of the hazy 
lower air, and coming under the full influence of the 
sun, then in the meridian, we shot upwards at con- 
siderable speed, and soon attained an altitude of three 
miles. But for a considerable portion of this climb 
— while, in fact, we were ascending through little less 
than a mile of our upward course — we were assailed 
by impetuous cross currents, which whistled through 
car and rigging and smote us fairly on the cheek. 
It was altogether a novel experience, and the more 
remarkable from the fact that our main onward course 
was not appreciably diverted. 



330 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

Then we got above these currents, and remained 
at our maximum level, while we floated, still at only 
a moderate speed, the length of a county. The 
descent then began, and once again, while we dropped 
through the same disturbed region, the same far- 
reaching and obtrusive cross-current assailed us. It 
was quite obvious that the vehement currents were 
too slender to tell largely upon the huge surface of 
the balloon, as it was being swept steadily onwards 
by the main wind, w T hich never varied in direction 
from ground levels up to the greatest height attained. 

This experience is but confirmation of the story 
of the wind told by the wind gauges on the Forth 
Bridge. Here the maximum pressure measured on 
the large gauge of 300 square feet is commonly con- 
siderably less than that on the smaller gauge, suggest- 
ing that the latter must be due to threads of air of 
limited area and high velocity. 

Further and very valuable light is thrown on the 
peculiar ways of the wind, now being considered, by 
Professor Langley in the special researches of his to 
which reference has already been made. This emi- 
nent observer and mathematician, suspecting that 
the old-fashioned instruments, which only told what 
the wind had been doing every hour, or at best every 
minute, gave but a most imperfect record, constructed 
delicate gauges, which would respond to every im- 
pulse and give readings from second to second. 

In this way he established the fact that the wind, 
far from being a body of even approximate uniformity, 
is under most ordinary conditions irregular almost 
beyond conception. Further, that the greater the 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 331 

speed the greater the fluctuations, so that a high wind 
has to be regarded as " air moving in a tumultuous 
mass," the velocity at one moment perhaps forty- 
miles an hour, then diminishing to an almost instan- 
taneous calm, and then resuming. " In fact, in 
the very nature of the case, wind is not the result 
of one simple cause, but of an infinite number of 
impulses and changes, perhaps long passed, which 
are preserved in it, and which die only slowly away." 

When we come to take observations of tempera- 
ture we find the conditions in the atmosphere above 
us to be at first sight not a little complex, and alto- 
gether different in day and night hours. From obser- 
vations already recorded in this volume — notably 
those of Gay Lussac, Welsh, and Glaisher — it has been 
made to appear that, in ascending into the sky in 
daytime, the temperature usually falls according to 
a general law ; but there are found regions where 
the fall of temperature becomes arrested, such regions 
being commonly, though by no means invariably, 
associated with visible cloud. It is probable, however, 
that it would be more correct not to interpret the 
presence of cloud as causing manifestation of cold, 
but rather to regard the meeting of warm and cold 
currents as the cause of cloud. 

The writer has experimented in the upper regions 
with a special form of air thermometer of great sen- 
sibility, designed to respond rapidly to slight varia- 
tions of temperature. Testing this instrument on 
one occasion in a room of equable warmth, and with- 
out draughts, he was puzzled by seeing the index in 
a capillary tube suddenly mounting rapidly, due to 



332 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

some cause which was not apparent, till it was noticed 
that the parlour cat, attracted by the proceedings, 
had approached near the apparatus. The behaviour 
of this instrument when slung in the clear some dis- 
tance over the side of the balloon car, and carefully 
watched, suggests by its fitful, sudden, and rapid 
changes that warmer currents are often making 
their way in such slender wandering rills as have been 
already pictured as permeating the broader air streams. 
During night hours conditions are reversed. The 
warmer air radiated off the earth through the day 
has then ascended. It will be found at different 
heights, lying in pools or strata, possibly resembling 
in form, could they be seen, masses of visible cloud. 

The writer has gathered from night voyages in- 
structive and suggestive facts with reference to the 
ascent of air streams, due to differences of tempera- 
ture, particularly over London and the suburbs, and 
it is conceivable that in such ascending streams may 
lie a means of dealing successfully with visitations 
of smoke and fog. 

One lesson taught by balloon travel has been that 
fog or haze will come or go in obedience to tempera- 
ture variations at low levels. Thus thick haze has 
lain over London, more particularly over the lower 
parts, at sundown. Then through night hours, as 
the temperature of the lower air has become equal- 
ised, the haze has completely disappeared, but only 
to reassert itself at dawn. 

A description of the very impressive experience 
of a night sail over London has been reserved, but 
should not be altogether omitted. Glaisher, writing 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 333 

of the spectacle as he observed it nearly forty years 
ago, describes London seen at night from a balloon 
at a distance as resembling a vast conflagration. 
When actually over the town, a main thoroughfare 
like the Commercial Road shone up like a line of 
brilliant fire ; but, travelling westward, Oxford Street 
presented an appearance which puzzled him. " Here 
the two thickly studded rows of brilliant lights were 
seen on either side of the street, with a narrow, dark 
space between, and this dark space was bounded, as 
it were, on both sides by a bright fringe like frosted 
silver." Presently he discovered that " this rich 
effect was caused by the bright illumination of the 
shop lights on the pavements." 

London, as seen from a balloon on a clear moon- 
light night in August a year ago (1901), wore a some- 
what altered appearance. There were the fairy lamps 
tracing out the streets, which, though dark centred, 
wore their silver lining ; but in irregular patches a 
whiter light from electric arc lamps broadened and 
brightened and shone out like some pyrotechnic dis- 
play above the black housetops. Through the vast town 
ran a blank, black channel, the river, winding on into 
distance, crossed here and there by bridges showing 
as bright bands, and with bright spots occasionally 
to mark where lay the river craft. But what was 
most striking was the silence. Though the noise of 
London traffic as heard from a balloon has diminished 
of late years owing to the better paving, yet in day 
hours the roar of the streets is heard up to a great 
height as a hard, harsh, grinding din. But at night, 
after the last 'bus has ceased to ply, and before the 



334 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR, 

market carts begin lumbering in, the balloonist, as 
he sails over the town, might imagine that he was 
traversing a City of the Dead. 

It is at such times that a shout through a speaking 
trumpet has a most startling effect, and more par- 
ticularly a blast on a horn. In this case after an 
interval of some seconds a wild note will be flung 
back from the house-tops below, answered and re- 
answered on all sides as it echoes from roof to roof — 
a wild, weird uproar that awakes suddenly, and then 
dies out slowly far away. 

Experiments with echoes from a balloon have 
proved instructive. If, when riding at a height, say, of 
2,000 feet, a charge of gun-cotton be fired electrically 
ioo feet below the car, the report, though really as 
loud as a cannon, sounds no more than a mere pistol 
shot, possibly partly owing to the greater rarity of 
the air, but chiefly because the sound, having no 
background to reflect it, simply spends itself in the 
air. Then, always and under all conditions of atmo- 
sphere soever, there ensues absolute silence until the 
time for the echo back from earth has fully elapsed, 
when a deafening outburst of thunder rises from 
below, rolling on often for more than half a minute. 
Two noteworthy facts, at least, the writer has estab- 
lished from a very large number of trials : first, that 
the theory of aerial echoes thrown back from empty 
i^pace, which physicists have held to exist constantly, 
and to be part of the cause of thunder, will have to 
be abandoned ; and, secondly, that from some cause 
yet to be fully explained the echo back from the 
earth is always behind its time. 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 335 

But balloons have revealed further suggestive 
facts with regard to sound, and more particularly 
with regard to the varying acoustic properties of 
the air. It is a familiar experience how distant 
sounds will come and go, rising and falling, often 
being wafted over extraordinary distances, and again 
failing altogether, or sometimes being lost at near range, 
but appearing in strength further away. A free 
balloon, moving in the profound silence of the upper 
air, becomes an admirable sound observatory. It 
may be clearly detected that in certain conditions of 
atmosphere, at least, there are what may be con- 
ceived to be aerial sound channels, through which 
sounds are momentarily conveyed with abnormal 
intensity. This phenomenon does but serve to give 
an intelligible presentment of the unseen conditions 
existing in the realm of air. 

It would be reasonable to suppose that were an 
eye so constituted as to be able to see, say, cumulus 
masses of warmer air, strata mottled with traces of 
other gases, and beds of invisible matter in suspen- 
sion, one might suppose that what we deem the clear- 
est sky would then appear flecked with forms as many 
and various as the clouds that adorn our summer 
heavens. 

But there is matter in suspension in the atmo- 
sphere which is very far from invisible, and which in 
the case of large towns is very commonly lying in 
thick strata overhead, stopping back the sunlight, 
and forming the nucleus round which noisome fogs 
may form. Experimenting with suitable apparatus, 
the writer has found on a still afternoon in May, 



336 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

at 2 ? ooo feet above Kingston in Surrey, that the air 
was charged far more heavily with dust than that 
of the London streets the next day ; and, again, at 
half a mile above the city in the month of August 
last dust, much of it being of a gross and even fibrous 
nature, was far more abundant than on grass en- 
closures in the town during the forenoon of the day 
following. 

An attempt has been made to include England in 
a series of international balloon ascents arranged 
expressly for the purpose of taking simultaneous ob- 
servations at a large number of stations over Europe, 
by which means it is hoped that much fresh knowledge 
will be forthcoming with respect to the constitution 
of the atmosphere up to the highest levels accessible 
by balloons manned and unmanned. It is very much 
to be regretted that in the case of England the attempt 
here spoken of has rested entirely on private enter- 
prise. First and foremost in personal liberality and 
the work of organisation must be mentioned Mr. P. Y. 
Alexander, whose zeal in the progress of aeronautics 
is second to none in this country. Twice through his 
efforts England has been represented in the impor- 
tant work for which Continental nations have no diffi- 
culty in obtaining public grants. The first occasion 
was on November 8th, igoo, when the writer was 
privileged to occupy a seat in the balloon furnished 
by Mr. Alexander, and equipped with the most modern 
type of instruments. It was a stormy and fast voyage 
from the Crystal Palace to Halstead, in Essex, 48 
miles in 40 minutes. Simultaneously with this, Mr. 
Alexander dismissed an unmanned balloon from Bath, 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 337 

which ascended 8,000 feet, and landed at Cricklade. 
Other balloons which took part in the combined ex- 
periment were two from Paris, three from Chalais 
Meudon, three from Strasburg, two from Vienna, 
two from Berlin, and two from St. Petersburg. 

The section of our countrymen specially inter- 
ested in aeronautics — a growing community — is repre- 
sented by the Aeronautical Society, formed in 1865, 
with the Duke of Argyll for president, and for thirty 
years under the most energetic management of Mr. 
F. W. Brearey, succeeding whom as hon. sees, have 
been Major Baden-Powell and Mr. Eric S. Bruce. 
Mr. Brearey was one of the most successful inventors 
of flying models. Mr. Chanute, speaking as Presi- 
dent of the American Society of Civil Engineers, paid 
him a high and well-deserved compliment in saying 
that it was through his influence that aerial naviga- 
tion had been cleared of much rubbish and placed 
upon a scientific and firm basis. 

Another community devoting itself to the pursuit 
of balloon trips and matters aeronautical generally 
is the newly-formed Aero Club, of whom one of the 
most prominent and energetic members is the Hon. 
C. S. Rolls. 

It had been announced that M. Santos-Dumont 
would bring an air ship to England, and during the 
summer of the present year would give exhibitions 
of its capability. It was even rumoured that he 
might circle round St. Paul's and accomplish other 
aerial feats unknown in England. The promise was 
fulfilled so far as bringing the air ship to England 
was concerned, for one of his vessels which had seen 
w 



338 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR. 

service was deposited at the Crystal Palace. In 
some mysterious manner, however, never sufficiently 
made clear to the public, this machine was one morn- 
ing found damaged, and M. Santos-Dumont has with- 
drawn from his proposed engagements. 

In thus doing he left the field open to one of our 
own countrymen, who, in his first attempt at flight 
with an air ship of his own invention and construc- 
tion, has proved himself no unworthy rival of the 
wealthy young Brazilian. 

Mr. Stanley Spencer, in a very brief space of time, 
designed and built completely in the workshops of 
the firm an elongated motor balloon, 75 feet long by 
20 feet diameter, worked by a screw and petrol motor. 
This motor is placed in the prow, 25 feet away from, 
and in front of, the safety valve, by which precaution 
any danger of igniting the escaping gas is avoided. 
Should, however, a collapse of the machine arise from 
any cause, there is an arrangement for throwing the 
balloon into the form of a parachute. Further, there 
is provided means for admitting air at will into the 
balloon, by which the necessity for much ballast is 
obviated. 

Mr. Spencer having filled the balloon with pure 
hydrogen, made his first trial with this machine late 
in an evening at the end of June. The performance 
of the vessel is thus described in the Westminster 
Gazette : — " The huge balloon filled slowly, so that 
the light was rapidly failing when at last the doors of 
the big shed slid open and the ship was brought care- 
fully out, her motor started, and her maiden voyage 
commenced. With Mr. Stanley Spencer in the car, 





Uj CO 



S CO 

o m 
o ^ 



THE CONSTITUTION OF THE AIR. 339 

she sailed gracefully down the football field, wheeled 
round in a circle — a small circle, too — and for perhaps 
a quarter of an hour sailed a tortuous course over 
the heads of a small but enthusiastic crowd of spec- 
tators. The ship was handicapped to some extent 
by the fact that in their anxiety to make the trial 
the aeronauts had not waited to inflate it fully, but 
still it did its work well, answered its helm readily, 
showed no signs of rolling, and, in short, appeared 
to give entire satisfaction to everybody concerned — 
so much so, indeed, that Mr. Stanley Spencer informed 
the crowd after the ascent that he was quite ready 
to take up any challenge that M. Santos-Dumont 
might throw down." Within a few weeks of this his 
first success Mr. Spencer was able to prove to the world 
chat he had only claimed for his machine what its 
powers fully justified. On a still September after- 
noon, ascending alone, he steered his aerial ship in 
an easy and graceful flight over London, from the 
Crystal Palace to Harrow. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

CONCLUSION. 

THE future development of aerostation is necessarily 
difficult to forecast. Having reviewed its history 
from its inception we have to allow that the balloon in 
itself, as an instrument of aerial locomotion, remains 
practically only where it was 120 years ago. Nor, 
in the nature of the case, is this to be wondered at. 
The wind, which alone guides the balloon, is beyond 
man's control, while, as a source of lifting power, a 
lighter and therefore more suitable gas than hydrogen 
is not to be found in nature. 

It is, however, conceivable that a superior mode 
of inflation may yet be discovered. Now that the 
liquefaction of gases has become an accomplished 
fact, it seems almost theoretically possible that a 
balloonist may presently be able to provide himself 
with an unlimited reserve of potential energy so as to 
be fitted for travel of indefinite duration. Endowed 
with increased powers of this nature, the aeronaut 
could utilise a balloon for voyages of discovery over 
regions of the earth which bar man's progress by any 
other mode of travel. A future Andree, provided with 
a means of maintaining his gas supply for six weeks, 
need have no hesitation in laying his course towards 
the North Pole, being confident that the winds must 
ultimately waft him to some safe haven. He could, 



CONCLUSION. 341. 

'ndeed, well afford, having reached the Pole, to descend 
and build his cairn, or even to stop a week, if he so 
desired, before continuing on his way. 

But it may fairly be claimed for the balloon, even 
as it now is, that a great and important future is open 
to it as a means for exploring inaccessible country. 
It may, indeed, be urged that Andree's task was, in 
the very nature of the case, well nigh impracticable, 
and his unfortunate miscarriage will be used as argu- 
ment against such a method of exploration. But it 
must always be remembered that in Andree's case 
the rigours of climate which he was compelled to 
face were the most serious of all obstacles to balloon 
travel. The extreme cold would not only cause con- 
stant shrinkage of the gas, but would entail the deposi- 
tion of a weight of moisture, if not of snow, upon the 
surface of the balloon, which must greatly shorten 
its life. 

It would be entirely otherwise if the country it 
were sought to explore were in lower latitudes, in 
Australia, or within the vast unknown belt of earth 
lying nearer the equator. The writer's scheme for 
exploring the wholly unknown regions of Arabia is 
already before the public. The fact, thought to be 
established by the most experienced aeronauts of 
old times, and already referred to in these pages, 
that at some height a strong west wind is to be found 
blowing with great constancy all round the globe, 
is in accordance with the view entertained by modern 
meteorologists. Such a wind, too, may be expected 
to be a fairly fast wind, the calculation being that, 
as a general rule, the velocity of currents increases 
w* 



342 THE DOMINION OF THE AIRi 

from the ground at the rate of about three miles per 
hour for each thousand feet of height ; thus the chance 
of a balloon drifting speedily across the breadth of 
Arabia is a strong one, and, regarded in this light, 
the distance to be traversed is certainly not exces- 
sive, being probably well within the lasting power of 
such a balloon as that employed by Andree. If, 
for the sake of gas supply, Aden were chosen for the 
starting ground, then 1,200 miles E.N.E. would carry 
the voyager to Muscat ; 1,100 miles N.E. by E. would 
land him at Sohar ; while some 800 miles would suffice 
to take him to the seaboard if his course lay N.E. 
It must also be borne in mind that the Arabian sun 
by day, and the heat radiated off the desert by night, 
would be all in favour of the buoyancy of the 
balloon. 

But there are other persistent winds that, for pur- 
poses of exploration, would prove equally serviceable 
and sure. From time immemorial the dweller on 
the Nile has been led to regard his river in the light 
of a benignant deity. If he wished to travel down 
its course he had but to entrust his vessel to the 
stream, and this would carry him. If, again, he wished 
to retrace his course, he had but to raise a sail, and 
the prevalent wind, conquering the flood, would bear 
him against the stream. This constant north wind, 
following the Nile valley, and thence trending still 
southward towards Uganda, has been regarded as a 
means to hand well adapted for the exploration of 
important unsurveyed country by balloon. This 
scheme has been conceived and elaborated by Major 
B. F. S. Baden-Powell, and, so far, the only apparent 



CONCLUSION: 343 

obstacle in the way has proved the lack of necessary 
funds. 

It will be urged, however, that for purposes of 
exploration some form of dirigible balloon is desir- 
able, and we have already had proof that where it 
is not sought to combat winds strongly opposed to 
their course such air ships as Santos-Dumont or 
Messrs. Spencer have already constructed acquit 
themselves well ; and it requires no stretch of imagina- 
tion to conceive that before the present century is 
closed many great gaps in the map of the world will 
have been filled in by aerial survey. 

But, leaving the balloon to its proper function, 
we turn to the flying machine properly so called with 
more sanguine hopes of seeing the real conquest of 
the air achieved. It w r as as it were but yesterday 
when the air ship, unhampered by huge globes 
of gas, and controlled by mechanical means alone, 
was first fairly tried, yet it is already considered by 
those best able to judge that its ultimate success is 
assured. 

This success rests now solely in the hands of the 
mechanical engineer. He must, and surely can, build 
the ship of such strength that some essential part does 
not at the critical moment break down or carry away. 
He may have to improve his motive power, and here, 
again, we do not doubt his cunning. Motor engines, 
self-contained and burning liquid fuel, are yet in their 
infancy, and the extraordinary emulation now exist- 
ing in their production puts it beyond doubt that 
every year will see rapid improvement in their effi- 
ciency. 



344 THE DOMINION OF THE AIR: 

We do not expect, nor do we desire, that the world 
may see the fulfilment of the poet's dream, " Argosies 
of magic sails " or " Airy navies grappling in the 
central blue." We would not befog our vision of 
the future with any wild imaginings, seeking, as some 
have done, to see in the electricity or other hidden 
power of heaven the means for its subjugation by 
man ; but it is far from unreasonable to hope that 
but a little while shall pass, and we shall have more 
perfect and reliable knowledge of the tides and cur- 
rents in the vast ocean of air, and when that day may 
have come then it may be claimed that the grand 
problem of aerial navigation will be already solved. 



INDEX. 



Accidents, Fatal, 29, 59, 64, 85, 
124, 125, 154, 217, 227, 230, 237, 
238, 241, 252, 274, 294, 314 

Acoustic Phenomena, 117, 165, 179, 
181, 192, 196, 301, 333 et seq. 

Aero Club, 337 

Aeronautical Society, 161, 337 

Air Ships, 219, 220, 222, 223, 228, 
229, 271, 292, 304, 306, 310, 313, 

3i4» 338 
Alexander, 306, 336 
Alps, Balloon Crossing, 139, 273, 

307 
America, Ballooning in, 91 et seq., 

136, 206 et seq., 323 
Andree, 280 et seq. 
Arabia, Exploring, 341 
Archibald, 271, 277 
Ascents, Lofty, 51, 60, 163 et seq., 

224, 240, 274, 309, 310 
, Long Distance, 78, 146, 217, 

288, 289, 303, 309 
•, Night, 28, 57, 69, 7^, 119, 147, 

298. 333 
, Scientific, 47 et seq. , 127 et seq. , 

151 et seq.y 163 et seq., 175 et seq., 

187, 272, 276, 295, 308 
Assmann, 272, 275 
Atlantic Crossing, 87, 100, 136 
Atmosphere, Observations of, 50, 52, 

158, 176 et seq., 253, 275, 328 et seq., 
335 {See also Wind) 



B 



Bacon, Francis, 9 et seq. 

, J. M., 193, 197, 295 etseq., 308, 

320 et seq., 325, 326, 329, 333, 336 

, Roger, 3 et seq. 

Baden- Powell, 253, 278, 280, 290, 319, 

337. 342 
Baldwin, 255 
Balloons, Bursting, 19, 60, 86, 96, 97, 

98, 119, 187 
, Construction of, 92, 97, 108, 

152, 199 

, Exploration by, 280, 283, 340 

, Hot Air, 16 et seq., 29, 30, 45, 

59, 2c6, 209, 264, 266, 319, 327 
, Inflation of, 17, 55, 66, 93, 104, 

206, 268 

-, Mammoth, 209 

, Steering, 7, 87, no, 321 

Ballons Sondes, 275 

Balsan, 309 

Baral and Bixio, 187 

Barton, 292, 313 

Beedle, 310 

Berson, 274, 309 

Besancon, 275, 276 

Besnier, n 

Blanchard, 25, 27, 43, 64, 79 

Boer War, Balloons in, 270 

Brearey, 337 

Bruce, 270, 337 

Buchanan, 310 

Burnaby, 233 



34-6 



INDEX, 



Cavallo, 13, 15 

Cavendish, 13, 15 

Chanute, 252, 313, 337 

Charbonnet, 273 

Charles, 18, 22 

Clouds, Observations of, 48, 102, 130 

et seq. , 145, 165 et seq. , 179, 299 
Cocking, 80 et seq, 
Coutelle, 140 
Coxwell, 121 et seq,, 136, 140, 143 et 

seq., 151 et seq., 164 et seq., 242, 

294 



Dale, 241 

Danilewski, 306 

Delcourt, 205 

Descents, Precipitate, 60, 86, 119, 124, 

190, 242 
, Remarkable, 124, 144, 145, 149, 

I 55> 20 3» 243, 260, 266, 273, 282 
Dumont, Santos, 291, 307, 310, 337 
Duruof, 195, 213, 235 



Eclipse, Balloons in connection 

with, 217, 239 
Eddy, 277 

Egypt, Exploring, 280, 342 
Egyptian War, Balloon in, 269 



Faure, 309 
Flammarion, 188 et seq. 
Flight of Birds, 231, 246, 253 
Flying-machines, 10, 11, 136, 246 et 

seq., 250, 251, 293, 306, 310 
Fonvielle, de, 193, 216, 219, 313 
Fremantle, Admiral, 308, 325 



Gambetta, 215 

Garner in, 44, 56, 141, 255 

Gas, Coal, 67, 135 

, Hydrogen, 15, 105, 206, 268 

(Also see Inflation) 
Gale, 123, 124 
Gay Lussac, 49 et seq. 
German Aeronautics, 272 
Giant Balloon, 198 et seq. 
Giffard, 209, 211, 221, 222 
Glaisher, 151, 157, 163 et seq., 332 
Godard, 149, 199 et seq., 209, 211, 

214, 323 
Green, 65 et seq., Si et seq., 115 etseq., 

127 et seq., 131, 133 et seq., 181, 

*95> 324 



H 



Hampton, 122, 155 
Hargrave, 252, 277 
Harris, 153 et seq. 
Henson, 137 
Flergesell, 275 
Hermite, 275, 276, 281 
Herve\ 289, 315 
Holland, 71 et seq., 122 



Instruments, 50, 128, 137, 163, 331 



Janssen, 217 
Jeffries, 25, 27 
Jo vis, 240 



K 



Kite-balloons, 271, 318 
Kites, 252 et seq., 277 



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